By J.M.Barrie adapted by Tommy Murphy

Meyne Wyatt Photo: Gary Heery

Directed by Ralph Myers

Resources for Teachers

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p1 Belvoir presents peter pan

By J.M. BARRIE Adapted by TOMMY MURPHY Director RALPH MYERS

Set Designer ROBERT COUSINS Costume Designer ALICE BABIDGE Lighting Designer DAMIEN COOPER Composer & Sound Designer STEFAN GREGORY Assistant Director ISAAC DRANDIC Fight Director SCOTT WITT Choreographer SARA BLACK Stage Manager LUKE McGETTIGAN Assistant Stage Manager AMY MORCOM

With Mrs Darling / Starkey / Second Twin PAULA ARUNDELL John / Crocodile JIMI BANI Slightly / Peter’s Shadow GARETH DAVIES First Twin / Second Twin / Cecco Petrucci / Black Murphy / Pirate Mullins HARRIET DYER Captain Hook / Mr Darling / Tootles CHARLIE GARBER Wendy GERALDINE HAKEWILL Michael / Tiger Lily / Jane MEGAN HOLLOWAY Nana /Smee / Nibs JOHN LEARY Peter Pan MEYNE WYATT

Belvoir’s production of Peter Pan opened at Belvoir St Theatre on Wednesday 9 January 2013.

Meyne Wyatt, Geraldine Hakewill Photo: Brett Boardman

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p2

CHARACTERS IN PETER PAN

THE DARLING FAMILY NANA (a dog) MICHAEL Darling (the youngest) JOHN Darling (the middle child) (the oldest and only daughter) Mrs Darling, their mother Mr Darling, their father

INHABITANTS OF

Peter Pan Tinker Bell, a fairy Tiger Lily Slightly, a lost boy Nibs, a lost boy First Twin, a lost boy Second Twin, a lost boy Rehearsal Photo: Brett Boardman PIRATES Hook, Captain Jas. Smee

Starkey Cecco Petruchi Black Murphy

AFTERTHOUGHT Jane, Wendy’s daughter

Gareth Davies, Jimi Bani, John Leary, Megan Holloway, Harriet Dyer

PLACES (SETTINGS) IN PETER PAN

act one. The Darling children’s nursery (bedroom)

act two. The Neverland

act three. The Mermaid’s Lagoon

act four. The Home Under the Ground

act five. The Pirate Ship / The Nursery and the Tree Tops

An Afterthought. The bedroom of Jane, Wendy’s daughter

Time: the childhood of the performers and now

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p3 Peter Pan SYNOPSIS – the story of the play

ACT 1 – The Darling Nursery The three Darling children, Wendy, John & Michael are going to bed. Their nurse, a dog called Nana, and their mother are trying to get them tucked safely in. Mr & Mrs Darling have a business dinner to get to. Mr Darling panics as he can’t do his tie, but Mrs Darling is able to manage it to everyone’s relief. She doesn’t like to leave her children as she has seen a strange boy at their bedroom window. She tells her husband she found him inside the room and closed the window as he was jumping out, trapping his shadow inside. She has kept it rolled up in the cupboard. Mr Darling attempts to trick Nana into drinking some medicine, putting it in her bowl and pretending it is milk – it makes Nana sick and when the children comfort her, Mr Darling is angry and drags Nana out to be chained up in the yard.

When the parents have gone, a strange boy (Peter Pan) flies through the window seeking his shadow. He is accompanied by Tinker Bell, a fairy. Tinker Bell shows Peter where his shadow is and he attempts to get it attached again. When that doesn’t work he sits down and cries. The noise wakes Wendy who sits up in bed and asks him why he is crying. She is appalled to find out that he doesn’t have a mother and that he was trying to stick on his shadow with soap. She offers to sew it on for him.

He is delighted and crows proudly, making Wendy retreat. But he lures her back by saying nice things about girls. Peter tells her that he ran away on the day he was born and has lived ever since among the fairies. Wendy is overjoyed to meet a fairy but Tinker Bell says many rude things about her which Peter translates (from the fairy language). He lives in Neverland with the (boys who fall out of their prams as babies and who unclaimed within 7 days). They exchange kisses and thimbles, (mixed up) neither of which Peter has ever encountered before. But when Peter attempts to ‘thimble’ (kiss) Wendy – Tinker Bell pulls her hair.

Wendy asks if Peter Pan came to see her but says he came to hear stories as they don’t know any. She tells him the end of the story of Cinderella and he rushes off to tell the others. He invites her to come with him - telling her they can fly to Neverland together. She wakes her brothers so they also can learn to fly. Once Peter sprinkles the fairy dust on them they get the hang of it and fly away with him to Neverland where there are pirates and mermaids and fairies.

ACT II – The Neverland The Lost Boys (Slightly, Nibs and the twins) await Peter’s return. They are afraid of pirates and don’t yet know how the story of Cinderella turns out. The pirates bellow a sea shanty which alerts the Lost Boys to their approach – they scarper!

Captain Hook holds forth on how much he hates Peter Pan for throwing his hand to a crocodile. Worst of all, the crocodile follows him everywhere, trying to get another bite. This crocodile has swallowed a clock and the clock ticks, warning Hook that the predator is coming. He prefers the hook he now wears instead of a hand.

Hook and his bosun, Smee, realise that they are sitting on top of a concealed chimney – the Lost Boys’ hideout must be underneath them. Hook plans to cook a large rich cake to lure the boys to eat the cake by leaving it in the mermaids’ lagoon; they will eat it and die. The crocodile arrives and frightens Hook and Smee away. The Lost Boys emerge from their hiding places to find wolves are chasing Nibs – however, as their leader, Peter would do, they look at the wolves through their legs and the wolves depart.

Nibs spies what he thinks is a large white bird flying towards them, moaning and saying, ‘Poor Wendy’. Tinker Bell tells them to shoot the Wendy and Slightly does. Wendy in her nightie falls to the earth but Tinker Bell mocks them. They realise that this is a real lady. Slightly is terrified and says good bye to his friends but before he can leave Peter returns. Slightly confesses he has shot the Wendy lady and tells Peter he is prepared to die. But just as Peter is about to kill him for his crime, Wendy holds his arm to prevent him. She is alive! His ‘kiss’ has saved her (the acorn she BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p4 had around her neck). On finding out that it was Tinker Bell who told Slightly to shoot the Wendy, Peter tells the fairy to go away from him for ever.

The Lost Boys tell Peter Tink is crying and he relents and banishes her, not for ever, but for a whole week. Unable to carry Wendy into the house, they build a Wendy house around her. John and Michael turn up and are unable to believe these boys are going to so much bother for a mere girl. Wendy wakes up and is delighted by the house. They tell her they are all her children and she is shocked but agrees to take on the job of being their mother, which she starts at once, shooing them inside.

ACT III – The Mermaid’s Lagoon The mermaids are lying about combing their hair – a Lost Boy tries to catch one but they all swim away. Wendy is disappointed but Peter tells her they are horrible and want to drown children. The Pirates are heard approaching and the Lost Boys and make themselves scarce. Smee & Starkey are bringing Tiger Lily to Marooner’s Rock, there to leave her tied up to drown. Peter imitates Hook’s voice perfectly and tells them to set her free.

The pirates follow their (as they think) captain’s orders and set her free. Then the real Hook turns up with the large rich damp cake untouched. He laments the fact that the boys have found a mother. Smee comes up with the idea of kidnapping Wendy and making her their mother and Hook falls in at once. On finding they have let Tiger Lily go, he cannot understand what has occurred and speaks to the spirit of the lagoon. Peter answers him in Hook’s own voice and claims to be him, telling Hook he is only a codfish. Hook is appalled and asks if the speaker has another name? Boastfully Peter tells him after a succession of guesses, that he is Peter Pan, wonderful boy.

A battle ensues but is interrupted by the crocodile. The Lost Boys and John & Michael travel home in the dinghy but there is no Wendy or Peter to be seen. They call out to them as they depart, thinking they must have swum home. Peter and Wendy are left alone on Marooner’s Rock and the tide is rising. Peter is wounded and can neither swim nor fly. Nor can Wendy make it to the island, swimming or flying without him. Suddenly they see the tail of the kite, and they escape on that. The moment before it carries them off, there is nearly a kiss between them but Peter pulls back.

ACT IV – The Home under the Ground In their home under the ground, the Lost Boys and the Darling children are having an imaginary dinner, with Wendy presiding as their mother. Peter arrives home with the heads of two tigers and a pirate, as their Father.

Peter asks Wendy if it is only pretend that he is their father and Wendy says yes, it’s only real if he wishes it. He doesn’t. She asks him what his exact feelings are for her and he tells her they are those of a devoted son. Tiger Lily, he says, is also puzzling – she wants to be something to him, but it is not his mother. Wendy agrees but won’t tell him what it is that she wants so badly.

When all the children are in bed Wendy tells them a story of the Darlings, it is her and John and Michael’s own story – she imagines them returning to their parents and the warm welcome they receive. But Peter tells him they are wrong about mothers – that he stayed away for ages but when he returned the window was shut and there was another little boy in his bed.

Panicked, they decide to go home, and Wendy asks Peter to make the arrangements. She tells the Lost Boys that if they come too, she is sure that Mr & Mrs Darling will adopt them all. Wendy expects Peter to come but he tells her he won’t – he wants always to be a little boy and have fun.

Outside the noise of a fight is heard, Captain Hook fights Tiger Lily and kills her. But he cunningly beats the Tom Tom which is what she does when she is victorious, so they think the Indians have won. As Wendy and the boys prepare to leave, Wendy tells Peter to be sure to take his medicine. He promises he will.

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p5 As the children exit they are captured by the pirates and Captain Hook enters the House under the Ground while Peter lies sleeping. He puts 5 drops of poison into Peter’s medicine. Tink tells Peter the redskins were defeated and Wendy and the boys are captured. About to drink his medicine, Tink drinks it instead of him and she starts to die. The only way she can recover, Tink tells Peter, is if children believe in fairies. All the children present have to clap their hands to show they believe. They do and she is saved. Peter rushes off to rescue Wendy.

ACT V – The Pirate Ship Captain Hook laments his position as the most hated villain known to children. The Lost Boys and Wendy are captives on the Jolly Roger, due to walk the plank. Hook offers the boys the chance to be his cabin boys but they turn down his offer eventually, saying their mothers would not like them to be pirates. Wendy gives the boys a message from their real mothers – ‘We hope our sons will die like gallant gentlemen’. Wendy is tied to the mast, about to be made to walk the plank when the crocodile’s tick is heard and then a crowing noise seems to come from the cabin.

Both come from Peter, now hiding in the cabin. A pirate Cecco Petrucci looks inside the cabin to see what made the crowing noise and comes back appalled, saying there is something dreadful within. Hook forces Cecco to go in after the fearsome ‘doodle-do’ but Cecco resists, saying Bill Dukes is dead inside. Hook forces Cecco to go but the noise of his death is heard immediately followed by another crow from the ‘doodle-do’. Hook forces Black Murphy, another pirate, in after him and another death noise and crow are heard.

Hook responds to a cheer from the Lost Boys by forcing them all into the cabin – where they find Peter. Peter also frees Wendy and takes her place at the mast and crows. As the pirates tell her there is none who can save her, he reveals himself as the one who can and a huge battle begins on board. Hook threatens to blow the ship to pieces by firing into the powder magazine but Peter takes the smoking bomb and throws it overboard. The crocodile comes for Hook and Hook gives himself into the mouth of the crocodile like it’s his destiny. The children cheer and sail the Jolly Roger home.

The Nursery and The Tree Tops We are once again in the Darling nursery with Mr Darling sleeping in Nana’s kennel. The window is open and Mrs Darling refuses to shut it, though Mr Darling feels a draught. The children return and their parents are overjoyed. Mr Darling begs Nana for her forgiveness. In the midst of the rejoicing Slightly and the other Lost Boys appear, and Wendy asks her parents if they can be adopted and come to live with them. Mr & Mrs Darling agree immediately and the whole lot of them run through the house.

Mrs Darling wants to adopt Peter too but he is wary of being sent to school and then to an office and becoming a man. He refuses as he wants always to remain a boy and to have fun. Wendy asks if she can go away with him again to look after him but Mrs Darling says no. She does promise Peter that Wendy can go to him a week every year to do his spring cleaning. Wendy asks Peter not to forget her and he tells her always to be waiting for him.

AFTERTHOUGHT It is the same nursery but Wendy is older and her little girl Jane is resisting going to bed. Jane wants to talk about Peter Pan and says she has heard him crowing in her sleep. She demonstrates what it sounds like but falls rapidly asleep. Peter flies in and sees Wendy there, he is unaware that any time has passed and has come back to get her to come with him for his spring cleaning.

But Wendy says she is too old now to fly away with him, that Jane in the bed asleep is her baby. Peter is upset by this and cries – Jane wakes up and asks him why he is crying. He explains that he came back to fetch his mother to take her to Neverland. Jane says she has been waiting for him and Peter asks her if she will be his mother. She agrees at once and asks her mother if she can fly away with him. They fly out the window, leaving Wendy alone in the nursery.

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p6

TOMMY MURPHY’S ADAPTATION of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan IS BASED ON -

'Peter Pan', 1904 original three-act pantomime manuscript, 'When Wendy Grew Up: An Afterthought', Epilogue, 1908, 'Peter and Wendy', 1911 novelisation,

'Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up', 1928, five-act published revised edition.

Geraldine Hakewill photo: Brett Boardman ACTIVITY – mapping story

You might like to read your class the above outline of the story of Peter Pan.

They could look at the image of the blackboard on the page following, describing the key events of the play, as charted by the director, Ralph Myers.

Students might like to try to map the story in the five acts – after you read them the outline of the story.

Things to think about:  Where does the story twist & turn?  When does something unexpected happen?  Who are the key players in the action?  Which characters go through the most changes?  Which characters travel the furthest from their starting points?  Who changes the least?  Who is on the edges of the action?  Where is the story most exciting? Where is it most comforting?  Do the exciting parts coincide with the parts where danger is?

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p7 STORY IN PETER PAN

Blackboard created by director Ralph Myers, charting the action of Peter Pan

Director’s Note Ralph Myers

Australia is obsessed with lost children. They’re everywhere in our culture: Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Dot and the Kangaroo, The Leaving of Liverpool, Frederick McCubbin, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Bringing Them Home.

Theatre director Barrie Kosky pointed out this national obsession to me. It was 2000 and I was a student of stage design at NIDA who had been given the (fabulous) task of designing a student production Kosky was creating for the Olympic Arts Festival. There Is No Need to Wake Up was a savage critique of Australia’s national psyche. The set design was dictated by Kosky: a stage-full of awful RSL carpet, a ceiling of fluorescent lights, and a poster of McCubbin’s Lost attached with brown packing tape to the back wall of the theatre. The show was genuinely surreal. Giant dancing lamingtons and Dalek-like hordes of poker machines menaced the audience and there, in the middle of the mayhem, was the lonely, restless figure of Peter Pan.

I’m not sure if any reviewers picked up what Kosky was putting down, but from where I stood (and with the benefit of a few gnomic pronouncements from the man himself) the point was clear: Peter Pan was very much at home among the lost children of the Australian mind and soul. Fast forward 12 years and Kosky is in a form of self-exile, running the Komische Oper in Berlin. And rather implausibly I find myself as Artistic Director at Belvoir, and rummaging in the bottom drawer of my brain for a play to direct in 2013.

Ah-ha! Peter Pan! I re-read J. M. Barrie’s weird and brilliant Edwardian play and fell head over heels in love with it all over again. The tale of a strange boy who flies in through the window of the nursery is instantly, beautifully familiar. But re-reading Barrie’s original play I was struck by the uncanny feeling that this could secretly be a play about Australia – a world off on its own, full of

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p8 oddities, constantly trying to leave its past behind. Australia, like Peter, has a wonderful and annoying determination never to grow up.

At Belvoir we specialise in blowing the dust off great classic plays and finding ways of making them live here, now, in our theatre, in our city. Great plays stay relevant because they’re about something fundamental. Peter Pan, in its own peculiar way, is as fundamental as Hamlet. But what really draws me to Peter Pan, other than its closet Australianness and its timelessness, is its unsuitability to a theatre such as ours. Barrie wrote Peter Pan for the Edwardian stage. Theatre was at the height of its obsession with naturalistic representation and spectacle. When Peter taught Wendy, Michael and John to fly, THEY FLEW, and everyone pretended they couldn’t see the wires.

Our Upstairs Theatre is nothing like the big, formal, traditional theatres of J. M. Barrie’s London. It’s an old tomato sauce factory with a little stage in the corner. There is no proscenium arch to frame the action, and no wings at the sides or flies above to store scenery in. But Barrie’s stories are fabulous because they began as just that: stories that he told to three young boys he met in the park. They’re great because they don’t actually need wires and acres of scenery. You just need to believe, like those boys did as Barrie spun his stories of pirates and mermaids and ticking crocodiles.

At this company we believe the best theatre requires the audience to use their imaginations. Believing in what’s happening on stage is like believing in fairies: you have to make yourself believe. And Barrie was right – every time someone stops believing a fairy dies. Or at least becomes unemployed. So thanks for coming along for the ride.

It’s going to be an awfully big adventure.

THINKING THROUGH THE IDEAS OF THE PLAY – BEFORE SEEING Peter Pan

PETER PAN & the motif of LOST CHILDREN – As a group think of as many examples as you can, from fairytales or other stories, in which children are lost or go missing.

YOU might like to consider the following fairy stories or add examples of your own: - Hansel & Gretel The Pied Piper of Hamelin Snow White

 Do parts of these stories reoccur again and again? What are the most important differences or variations?  How do the stories explore contrasting representations of HOME (the domestic familiar world) and the OUTSIDE WORLD?  Do these stories give children a way to prepare themselves for dangerous situations? Are all the dangers outside or are some actually originating inside the familiar and domestic situation?

Consider how this idea or motif of the lost child is used in the story of Peter Pan – think about the way the idea of a Neverland has extra resonance if it is used in an Australian or a colonial context, to refer to the idea of the BUSH beyond the door. What are some of the dangers that are located in the world outside? Eg pirates, mermaids, drowning, dangerous grown ups.

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY Look for the artist Frederick McCubbin’s 1886 painting LOST referenced in the director’s notes above - how are some of these ideas of the ‘lost child represented in this image? http://www.theage.com.au/world/lure-of-the-little-child-lost-20090814-el5z.html

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p9 J.M. Barrie – Playwright

On the Acting of a Fairy Play J.M. Barrie

1. The difference between a fairy play and a realistic one is that in the former all the characters are really children with a child’s outlook on life. This applies to the so-called adults of the story as well as to the young people. Pull the beard off the fairy king, and you would find the face of a child. 2. The actors in a fairy play should feel that it is written by a child in deadly earnestness and that they are children playing it in the same spirit. The scenic artist is another child in league with them. 3. In England the tendency is always to be too elaborate, to over act. This is particularly offensive in a fairy piece, where all should be quick and spontaneous and should seem artless. 4. A very natural desire of the actor is to “get everything possible out of a line” – to squeeze it dry – to hit the audience a blow with it as from a hammer, instead of making a point lightly and passing on as if unaware that he had made a point. There are many tricks of the stage for increasing this emphasis, and they are especially in favour to strengthen the degraded thing called “the laugh” which is one of the curses of the English stage. Every time an audience stops a play to guffaw, the illusion of the stage is lost, and the actor has the hard task of creating it again. Don’t force the laugh. An audience can enjoy itself without roaring – as the French know. 5. In short, the cumulative effect of naturalness is the one thing to aim at. In a fairy play you may have many things to do that are not possible in real life, but you conceive yourself in a world in which they are ordinary occurrences, and act accordingly. Never do anything because there is an audience, but only and entirely because you think this is how the character in that fanciful world would do it. 6. No doubt there should be a certain exaggeration in acting, but just as much as there is in stage scenery, which is exaggerated, not to be real but to seem real.

Barrie, J.M., Peter Pan, Ed. Anne Hiebert Alton, Broadview Editions, Peterborough, Ontario, 2011.

DRAMA ACTIVITY: Before seeing the play With your class, read the description above of what J.M. Barrie thought a ‘fairy’ play should be like.

Talk about what he means by ‘all the characters are really children with a child’s outlook on life”

o Try getting everyone to BE A QUEEN for a moment. To walk around the room as if a purple velvet cloak is extending from their shoulders.

o Then try getting them to BE A QUEEN who is really a child, and to walk around the room with a purple velvet cloak but with a school uniform underneath it.

What is the difference? Which way is more interesting? What is the difference between letting the mask slip so that the child underneath can be seen & actually stepping out of character?

If someone has written a story with a lot of fantastical action in it, and a lot of characters, you could try improvising some of the scenes or moments – keeping the above principles in mind.

- Everything, however strange, should seem normal. Nothing should be played for laughs, everyone is really a child underneath.

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p10 Playwright – JM Barrie

James Matthew Barrie

“We are all failures, at least the best of us are.” JM Barrie

“For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded.” JM Barrie

For a profile of J.M. Barrie see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mr8yj/profiles/j-m-barrie ______

On the adaptation Tommy Murphy

A clock strikes to trigger the action of our play. Danger lurks in the form of a crocodile, not just a creature with gnashing teeth determined to devour its chosen victim, but a predator that has swallowed a clock. It is the ticking of time that hunts Hook, the enemy of youth in our story.

J.M. Barrie obsessed with forces of time and change. It is fitting then that he resisted fixity and closure in his process as a dramatist. The creator of ‘the boy who wouldn’t grow up’ revised, trimmed and altered his play continuously for over 30 years.

Every theatre company that stages Peter Pan must make choices about which version or versions to perform. This has always been the case. Peter Pan has never stood still.

He sprang from the playful storytelling of an adult acting out roles with children in a park. Barrie shaped a narrative from the games he played with the Llewellyn Davies boys in 1897. The character first appears in print in Barrie’s 1902 novel as a figure that has existed for generations, even though Pan was at the outset of his evolution. Peter Pan first took to the stage in a 1904 pantomime production that suffered a collapsing set and mechanical failures. Cuts were made as a result and lengthy set changes necessitated additional bridging scenes to mask the stage manoeuvres behind the curtain. Despite the difficulties, or because of them, the play was set to become a ‘timeless’ classic. Its collaborative playwright was ever ready to refine the complexity and stagecraft of his tale. Mermaids were added late to broaden the appeal to young girls. Fairy dust became a requirement of flight in addition to happy thoughts in 1905 – supposedly after the London Ambulance Service noted the increasing number of children injured whilst attempting to fly. (Children watching our production will leave knowing exactly how to fly so we anticipate no such problems.) The iconic line: ‘To die would be an awfully big adventure,’ was omitted during World War One. Even the navigation to Neverland has shifted. In 1904 you were to take ‘the first turning to the right’. To avoid confusion when departing from the theatre, please note your destination is ‘Second to the right and straight on ’til morning’.

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p11 There are four source texts for this adaptation. The 1904 original three-act pantomime manuscript (Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up) was only recently published in 2011. Peter and Wendy is a 1911 novelisation. J.M. Barrie finally printed a five-act published revised edition of Peter Pan in 1928. A 1908 epilogue (When Wendy Grew Up) was subtitled by Barrie, An Afterthought. It was conceived as a one-off and performed on a single occasion in Barrie’s lifetime. This melancholy encounter with Wendy as an adult, published posthumously in 1957, has become an integral aspect of the story as we know it. It tells of the perpetuity of Peter’s adventures and gathers poignancy as each generation comes to know this eternal boy. However, if performed in full, the five acts and epilogue elongate the narrative with repeated information and a disjointed ending. The original pantomime offers a complicated denouement with the lost boys adopted by childless mothers chosen by Peter. The structure of our adaptation has been reworked but it takes inspiration from the shift in tone that is consistent across the four source texts.

The part of the Indians is reduced in this adaptation. Barrie’s rendering of their language has not stood the test of time. Their presence still contributes to the plot and we have taken inspiration from Barrie’s description of their fate in the novel: ‘It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a fight’.

The 1928 published edition, as the culmination of Barrie’s constant tinkering, might be considered the bona fide version. Yet some critics suggest it suffers from over-refinement. The real difficulty is that it is published for a readership rather than as a working theatre script. It draws heavily on the novel, reproducing slabs of descriptive text as stage directions. Although beautiful for their poetics and literary merit, they are often irrelevant to the dramatic action. It is a bonus insight, for example, to know that ‘when the weather grows cold mermaids migrate to the other side of the world, and [Peter] once went with a great shoal of them half the way’. This detail is neither of immediate consequence to the scene at the Mermaid’s Lagoon or at all playable. When Mr Darling chains up the dog we are to ‘hope that he then retires to his study, looks up the word “temper” in his thesaurus, and under the influence of those benign pages becomes a better man’. Should you perceive that in Mr Garber’s portrayal, it is either because of his command as an actor or more likely your own projections of meaning, for we have cut that stage direction from our working draft.

Other stage directions, although literary, remain as intriguing offers to interpret in the rehearsal room or in design. For example, the evening gown Mrs Darling wears, I’m sure you will agree, is ‘a delicious confection made by herself out of nothing and other people's mistakes’.

The script for the 1904 pantomime is more or less a prompt copy: a practical document for the stage that counters the florid descriptions of the latter version. When Wendy reattaches Peter’s shadow, the 1904 text reads: ‘He winces 3 times, but is brave – she sews – business’. This straightforward efficiency often won out over grandeur for our adaptation, though some of Barrie’s poetic narration has been adapted into dialogue for this production. The description of Neverland occupies several pages in the 1928 published play; it is stated simply in the 1904 version as ‘Time – winter, river frozen,’ and that is how it stood in our rehearsal script. Tonight, however, conjured in performance – and should you perform your role to the full – what you will ‘see is the Never Land. You have often half seen it before, or even three-quarters, after the night-lights were lit, and you might then have beached your coracle on it if you had not always at the great moment fallen asleep. I dare say you have chucked things on to it, the things you can't find in the morning. In the daytime you think the Never Land is only make-believe, and so it is to the likes of you, but this is the Never Land come true’.

But let us not go there ahead of time. Let us go back a step… The night nursery of the Darling family, which is the scene of our opening Act, is at the top of a rather depressed street in Bloomsbury. We have a right to place it where we will... and if you think it was your house you are very probably right.

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p12 Here we are in this room. Perhaps it recalls your childhood. Perhaps you’ve played these games before. For those of you who know the story well, we trust our telling accords with your memory. For those who will for the first time spy ‘a strange little face’ at the window, who will find it novel to ‘jump on the wind’s back’ and be conveyed to Neverland, may your imaginary flight be true and complete. And just as theatre shifts from night to night, when the atmosphere one audience creates is entirely different to their counterparts the night before, and in the spirit of J.M. Barrie who rewrote and readjusted his text, we hope to bring you a Peter Pan like no other.

AFTER SEEING THE PLAY: To think about PETER PAN & HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Read the historical background from Tommy Murphy’s note on the adaptation to give your students some background on the history of this play.

Peter Pan was written to be performed as a pantomime, with certain traditions. Pantomimes are interactive, the audience enjoys booing the villains and cheering the heroes – how does Captain Hook fulfill the role of a villain? Are there ways that JM Barrie makes him sympathetic or helps us understand him? Do you think he is a typical pantomime villain? What about Peter Pan – is he a standard issue hero? How is he different or in

the mode of a pantomime hero? Try listing his qualities and working out what is

similar to other heroes of pantomimes (eg Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Jack & the Beanstalk)

Are Peter Pan and Captain Hook archetypes of some kind? Is it as simple as good & bad or is it more complicated than that? Think about their ages…

Peter Pan: I’m Hook: No little youth, I’m joy, I’m a children love me. I photo:little Brett bird Boardman that has am told they play at broken out of the Peter Pan and the egg. strongest of them always chooses to be Peter. They would

rather be a Twin than Hook; they force the

baby to be Hook. The baby!

Meyne Wyatt as Peter Pan triumphs over Charlie Garber as Hook Photo: Brett Boardman

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p13 REHEARSALS: PETER PAN

Meyne Wyatt as Peter Pan coming through the Darling children’s window in rehearsals photo: Brett Boardman

Actors at Belvoir rehearse for 5 weeks at the Belvoir Warehouse, just down the road from the theatre in a rehearsal room big enough to mark out the size of the Belvoir stage. The cast have a ‘rehearsal set’ of flats and substitute set items to rehearse with. They rehearse Monday to Friday from 10am till 6pm and on occasional Saturdays.

They spend a sixth week on stage in the Upstairs theatre at Belvoir St theatre, in technical production rehearsals. As Peter Pan is a professional theatre production all actors, director and crew are paid for the rehearsal period as well as for all the weeks of performances.

John Leary, Gareth Davies, Megan Holloway, Harriet Dyer rehearse Peter Pan photo: Brett Boardman

o Can you work out which scene these actors are rehearsing? o Does it look like the finished version of that scene? (Marooner’s rock) o How do you imagine they got to this point? o Would the way they were using props and blankets be planned or improvised in rehearsal? o Why do you think so?

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p14 DESIGNING FOR THEATRE: PETER PAN

Photo: Brett Boardman Model box for Peter Pan: Robert Cousins

THINKING ABOUT SET DESIGN: Peter Pan was designed by Robert Cousins and directed by Ralph Myers, himself a set designer. They worked together closely, also with Alice Babidge the costume designer to develop a world for the Darling children’s bedroom (called their ‘nursery’ in the original) that could be transformed into the world of the Neverland that they fly away to. It is unusual to have a director who is also a designer and this factor allowed the design to respond uniquely to the way rehearsals gradually developed the blueprint for the staging of the story.

The model box above shows the bedroom at the start of the story, as planned before rehearsals started. Many of the final design elements came completely out of the rehearsal process - you could show your students the model box image and get them to play spot the difference from the set as it was when they saw it. [Clues: bunk bed wrong way round, no tables and chairs. What is missing? – noticeboard, posters, different bedcovers]

Discussion questions to think through with drama students:

 What can you imagine would be the advantages of being able to keep designing the set

throughout rehearsals?

 Would there be any disadvantages that you can think of?

Before the play

Look at the model box image above and think about the different locations of the five acts.

How can this space can be transformed to work for the Lost Boys’ home under the ground, the

Mermaid Lagoon, a Pirate Ship

 What kind of changes could be made to effect this transformation?

 Do you expect these to be done by the actors or the stage management team? Why?

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p15 Charlie Garber & Paula Arundell as Mr & Mrs Darling photo: Brett Boardman

As a starting point, the designer talked about a pre-digital time when this first act was set. The rationale for setting it in an early 80s kids bedroom/ rumpus room was that this time was the time when most of the cast of this production were children. The bedroom is full of things, full of board games and other toys. The eventual production included a robot with glowing red eyes.

Pan himself entered through the window, which was a real window out onto the street. A feature of the theatre was used to create the impact of Pan really entering from another space, into the children’s domestic space.

The set also included a lot of hiding spaces for The Lost Boys, Hook and the other characters, so actors could wriggle out and join the action unexpectedly.

The idea was that the children were surrounded by games and toys, a whole lot of useless objects whose purposes break down as imaginative games take hold – they become more and more inventive and at the key moment of the fight between the Pirates and the Lost Boys, the bunk bed itself is transformed into a pirate ship.

The rule that the set designer and the director developed and which came into the rehearsal room was that the solutions have to come from whatever you find in the room.

To help with the ‘flying’ moments the bottom bunk bed included a concealed trampoline. There were concealed entrances behind the back wall to assist actors to appear. Most of the sound was scored from within the set. A drum kit assisted with that, as did a whole range of bells and percussion instruments.

The seemingly innocuous colours of the bedclothes on the three beds become crucial when it is time for Hook to meet his untimely end in the mouth of a crocodile. A crocodile with soccer balls for eyes and a great gaping mouth as big as a single bed.

The set of this production of Peter Pan functions through surprises like this moment. Where things which have been before your eyes the whole time come together to be revealed as deliberately put there as part of the game.

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p16 After the play – to talk through in class  Which part of the set for Peter Pan surprised you the most?  Did you understand why the decisions were made the way they were?  Was the rule the designers and director developed of using whatever came to hand - one that you were able to understand quickly?  Did it help you understand the story?  What else did it help you grasp about the way the world of the Neverland reflected the world of the children’s own family?  Can you imagine this production of Peter Pan without using this rule? Why/Why not?

Meyne Wyatt, Harriet Dyer, Geraldine Hakewill, John Leary & Charlie Garber photo: Brett Boardman

What props are being used in this picture?

Why might Peter be wearing a towel on his head?

Do the swords look scary or dangerous? Do they look like real Pirate swords?

Does Smee look like a pirate?

Can you see that the other pirate’s beard is held on with elastic?

How has the bunk bed been transformed into a pirate ship?

What has been added?

What is Wendy still wearing?

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p17 PROPS IN PETER PAN

Belvoir has a designated Production Coordinator whose job it is to source all the props you see onstage in Peter Pan and in other productions.

Many different versions of props are tried out during rehearsals and decided on or rejected depending on how they work in the context of the action and whether cast and director are comfortable with them, as well as the designers happy with the way they look. Sometimes these are adjusted again, once in the theatre, as all the other set elements are combined.

Peter Pan used multiple props, bells and other equipment. Just as in a children’s bedroom, or in children’s games, one thing can be used to serve the purpose of another thing.

One crucial prop was Hook’s hook. The actor who played Captain Hook also played Mr Darling. In theatre this is known as doubling.

Show students the picture on the left of Captain Hook scratching his head with the hook and then show them the photo below of the Darling family. Do they remember another prop which Mr Darling came in with, under his arm in the photo below that is like Hook’s hook? Does this suggest an origin of this fearsome object? Charlie Garber as Captain Hook photo: Brett Boardman

Paula Arundell, Jimi Bani, Megan Holloway, Geraldine Hakewill, John Leary & Charlie Garber photo: Brett Boardman

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p18 Staging the story of Peter Pan Story board for Peter Pan: Ralph Myers Photo: Cathy Hunt

Here is an image of the story board that director Ralph Myers made to help him think through significant moments in Peter Pan – each moment represents a staging challenge, some moments are (much) trickier than others. In a theatre like Belvoir St Theatre, solutions need to come through staging rather than through complex effects or machinery. Staging particular moments in Peter Pan – (discussion questions for after the show)

Geraldine Hakewill & Meyne Wyatt

(Wendy is about to sew Peter’s shadow back on)

photo: Brett Boardman

SEWING ON THE SHADOW  How did Wendy ‘sew’ Peter’s shadow back on? Did this seem real?  How did the actors playing Peter, Peter’s shadow & Wendy – show through their performances that the needle was going through Peter’s feet with extreme difficulty?  Did you find this funny? Why do you think it came across as funny?  To think about: Why do we find pain funny onstage / when we know it isn’t real?

BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p19

FLYING LESSONS  How was Peter Pan shown as flying?  What about when the Darling children ‘fly’ for the first time – do you remember how this was done?  How did this affect the meaning of the production differently than if the children had ‘flown’ with invisible wires?  How did this moment signal to the audience what sort of production this was going to be?  What was the audience’s reaction when you saw it, to the choice to do the flying this way. Do you remember?

Megan Holloway & Meyne Wyatt photo: Brett Boardman

SLIGHTLY SHOOTS WENDY  Do you remember the moment when Slightly saw a great white bird flying this way and moaning ‘poor Wendy’ ‘poor Wendy’ as it flew?  When he shot the Wendy-bird – how did the actors create an idea in our minds that Wendy had fallen out of the sky with an arrow in her heart?  Were we meant to think this had ‘really’ happened? Why/ why not?

BUILDING A HOUSE FOR WENDY  How was the house for Wendy created?  Did the actors use any objects to make it?  Did you find this confusing or did it make sense to you? Why/why not?

MERMAID HUNTING ON MAROONER’S ROCK  How did the actors become ‘mermaids’?  Can you remember what they did and what they wore?  What kind of music was playing? Do you remember how it was created?  Once the atmosphere had been created, how was it dispelled?  Do you remember how the setting for Marooner’s Rock was created?  What objects in the room were used to create this rock? What were they covered with?

Harriet Dyer photo: Brett Boardman BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p20

THEY ESCAPE ON A KITE  How was the moment when Wendy and Peter escape from drowning by kite created – did we see the whole kite?  Which part of the kite did the audience see?  Was this enough for us to believe this happened?

TINKERBELL DRINKS PETER’S POISONED MEDICINE  Did you expect to see Tinkerbell played by just one actor?  Why do you think the director decided not to have this happen?  How did we learn what Tinkerbell’s fairy speech that sounds like the tinkle of tiny bells, meant?  What did Tinkerbell keep saying throughout the play? (A: You silly ass)  How did we ‘see’ Tinkerbell moving and reacting? (clue: Think about sound, light, and bells, as well as the actors ringing the bells)

Meyne Wyatt photo: Brett Boardman  Do you remember the moment when Tink drinks Peter’s medicine which has been poisoned by Captain Hook? Did you believe that she had drunk it to save him?  How was this impression created? ( think about the actor playing Pan, sound, way actor manipulating the bell dropped it in the water.)  Did you clap your hands? Did you say ‘I do believe in fairies, I do, I do’ ?  In theatre this is known as audience participation – how did you know what to do? Did you trust the actor playing Peter and want to do what he asked? Why/why not?

Class activity – each member of the class must stand up and persuade the whole class, the audience, to follow their lead. To do something unusual. What works best to persuade people to join in? You could demonstrate by standing up and putting your hands on your head, see if they follow – one person could face the opposite way, someone else could stand on their desk..

HOOK EATEN BY CROC Do you remember how the crocodile was created through costume and stage design?

 What was his head made from?  What was his body made from?  How did the crocodile finally ‘eat’ Captain Hook?  Was this satisfying to watch?  Why was it fun to see a character like Captain Hook bounce into the crocodile’s open mouth?  How did this way of suggesting the death suit the play and the idea that Hook knows the crocodile will eventually be his doom?  Did the death seem ‘real’ or scary? Why/ why not?  Were the actors like kids playing a game?  Did Hook seem to choose his fate?  Was it funny?

Jimi Bani as the crocodile in Peter Pan photo: Brett Boardman BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p21

FURTHER READING: Peter Pan & JM BARRIE Andrew Birkin, JM Barrie & The Lost Boys, London; Constable & Company, 1979 Jackie Wullschläger, Inventing Wonderland: The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M.Barrie, Kenneth Grahame and AA Milne, London; Methuen, 1995

Online Resources Peter Pan trailer: http://youtu.be/Kmjw3b4aB5M

About Peter Pan and JM Barrie: http://www.jmbarrie.co.uk/ http://www.jmbarrie.net/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mr8yj/profiles/j-m-barrie

Thinking about Lost Children http://www.theage.com.au/world/lure-of-the-little-child-lost-20090814-el5z.html

Peter Pan at Belvoir St Theatre

ARTICLES http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/beyond-neverland-20120927-26m41.html http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/neverland-for-grownups-20121213-2baq4.html http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/forever-young-20121220-2bnvt.html Interviews– Meyne Wyatt - http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/insider/peter-pan-still-flying- high/story-e6frewt9-1226542373482

REVIEWS Print: SMH - http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/genuine-family-show-delights-20130110-2cirh.html Australian - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/stage/peter-pan-strives-to-be-forever-young/story- fn9d344c-1226551959945

Online: Timeout - http://www.au.timeout.com/sydney/theatre/events/32843/peter-pan http://blogs.crikey.com.au/curtaincall/2013/01/15/review-peter-pan-belvoir-st-theatre-sydney/ http://thespellofwakinghours.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/tonight-we-fly-belvoirs-peter-pan.html Stagenoise review by 9 yr old FELICITY DAYHEW -http://www.stagenoise.com/review/1885

Geraldine Hakewill, Harriet Dyer, Megan Holloway, John Leary, Gareth Davies, Paula Arundell, Meyne Wyatt photo: Brett Boardman BELVOIR Peter Pan Resources for Teachers p22