Peter Pan
A recent blog by Andrea Lena DiMaggio entitled Flight to Neverland got me thinking about what role (pardon the pun) if any, women/girls playing the part of Peter Pan in most stage and TV productions of the show/musical Peter Pan, may have had on the psyche of impressionable boys?
Since the first stage production of Peter Pan in London in 1904 women/girls have played Peter Pan. For readers of this blog the earliest Peter Pan, might be Bea Arthur in 1950. Those of us aged probably 59 and older, surely saw the TV version of the Musical staring Mary Martin on March 7, 1955. I do remember cheering for Tinker Bell to awake after drinking the poison, and playing Peter Pan with friends. While that production was repeated several times, other productions of the show/musical followed staring Sandy Duncan, Mia Farrow and Cathy Rigby.
A google search does not show any boys playing the role of Peter Pan except in movies and recent TV shows.
So did the fact that a woman/girl playing Peter Pan have any affect on anyone reading this in developing their female persona, interest in this subject matter, etc.
Art Hirschfeld the caricaturist of “Nina” fame (I always looked for the Nina’s in the Sunday NY Times) had a series of caricatures entitled Unlikely Casting. The second in the series in 1964 was of Zero Mostel (Fiddler on the Roof, The Producers A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) playing Peter Pan. (The link below is to that picture). I think that if he had played Peter instead of mary Martin, I might not be raising this question.
http://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/piece/peter-pan
RAMI
Comments
I was...
I was aware that Peter was generally played by women. To the best of my knowledge, it never impacted my wondering of who I was.
One interesting quote I recall reading many years ago - was something Cathy Rigby related... She said she asked her young son what he thought about the show and that his response was "Mom, you make a great boy!" Always brought a smile thinking about that. (BTW - She's STILL playing Peter Pan on occasion. (I happened to see an advertisement for her to play it for a week - April, I think - in Boston.)
Annette
Make sense some women can portray a boy of indeterminate age
Isn't it essentially true that as embryos we are all essentially female until certain genes kick in to differentiate the sexes?
And until puberty girls and boys are roughly similar in overall build and appearance. And THAT is the cut off age for Nevernever Land.
Thus it is logical we have some androgynous guys who can be stunning females. What's that genetically male model who looks so utterly female as a high fashion model? Pejeck?
And probably easier for an athletic or a slender woman to be made up to look like a boy.
Now a curvaceous woman... Like say, Nicki Minaj, THAT would take some effort, Unless you put them in a fat man suit.
Lady Gaga has performed as her male alter ego more than once and very convincingly. But then she has a dancers build.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
In the movie "Hook",
Peter Pan was portrayed by Robin Williams as having spent too much time away from Neverland and subsequently becoming middle aged and having children along the way. Maggie Smith portrayed Wendy, who had done the same thing.
I saw a performance
A few years back, a local high school put on Peter Pan. They hired a production company that specialized in the show. These people rigged up the theater, taught the kids how to fly, taught them the ropes (literally), and left them to it.
It was pretty good, except that it was a bit miscast: Peter Pan had bigger breasts than Wendy, and was absolutely the prettiest, most feminine girl in the cast. Just imagine a young Kate Upton in the role. It was impossible to ignore the gender dissonance.
The same thing happens in operas, you know - there are "pants parts," which were once played either by adolescent boys or by castrati, but are now played by mezzosopranos, and often the effect is as I described above: where the supposed man has such a perfectly feminine form and a more-than-well developed pair of breasts.
It's great.
But to your question - when I was kid when I saw the movie, I thought, "But she's a girl!" and added it to the list of things in life that made no sense.
Ah, Peter Pan...
I'm glad you made this post.
I'm in my 40's, and back in the 70's, I developed one heck of a little fetish about Peter Pan, boys, and tights.
Especially boys in tights.
At age approximately 9, I realized that all the movies, plays, picture (photo)-books, all had women playing the roll of Peter.
This royally pissed me off then, and it's a bug in my butt ever since!
I wanted to be Peter so bad; I clearly remember reading (again!) my Peter Pan story book (it was heavy on the words, but had some drawings) one afternoon; I was thirsty, and hopped up with the book in hand, went to the kitchen, got a drink and told Mom how much I LOVED Peter (blush!).
Wouldn't you know it? Later that year, I indeed played Peter Pan in our school play. The wosrt part for me was pretending I hated the costume, which included tights, of course, and a totally cute tunic.
So for me, the whole women-playing-Peter Pan question, and its effect on me as a boy, is this; it bothered me, but made me think about gender issues at a young age, and gave me a reason to go for the role in the play when the opportunity came up, just to prove that boys ARE supposed to act the part. I only told one friend at the time how I really felt about them, and he was totally cool with it, even if he did tease me for being a wierd little kid (I'd tease him right back, so it was no big deal).
Peter Pan being played by
a woman was fairly sound reasoning as most boys would not want to wear tights. There are very few males who are into ballet for that reason, too.
May Your Light Forever Shine
I don't know about that...
I mean, think about superheroes, wrestlers, etc. I don't think the tights keep men and boys from ballet. It's the thing itself. And when a man does dance ballet, his equipment is usually showing, not tucked away.
Since this blog post went up, I've been thinking that something else was going on with the original casting. I mean, why a woman? Why not an actual boy? There has to be more to it.
When they do Annie, they cast a actual little girl. They don't search for a middle-aged man with curly red hair and an annoying voice.
Puberty Pan
Boys the right age and size and with the right voice are right on the edge of puberty, your show could be derailed one morning when the star wakes up with a breaking voice.
It's the same reason women play most of the boy roles in animation, with a few exceptions. The Peanuts gang were played by actual children and recast each year. Mr. Peabody's boy Sherman was played by a man, Walter Tetley, a Little Person whose voice had never broken.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Hadn't considered that...
But you're right... back when my daughter was still watching cartoons, I do remember being surprised to discover that the voices of several cartoon "boys" were actually women, such as Jimmy Neutron or Timmy Turner in Fairy OddParents.
Peter Panne Velour...
...they might be scared or even sad
to wear some tights you know?
'Cause some bullies might be brash
and the poor boy they might thrash
In NeverBallet Land?
It's not so good to show your self
with talent like the dance
Though it's not so nice or fair
to be bullied without care
in NeverBallet Land!
Seriously? In almost all of the things we find about ourselves, be we closeted grannies or flamboyant ballerinos, it's about how we perceive ourselves, and how the fears we hold inside relate to what is real or not. In other words, what do we believe will happen to us if we show ourselves to the outside.
A boy in a school in the States is less likely to hazard en pointe when some halfwit waits at the stage door to beat the crap out of him. Not so much in other parts of the world, I expect, but it is improving. Boys are reluctant to get involved in ballet because they most always will be perceived by a vocal and physically threatening few as sissies. And boys and men have been known to wear tights under their uniforms in sub-zero weather football games, so it's really not about the clothes...
Watching American Idol tonight, the women were front and center for the hour. A girl with a very esoteric (read kookie) appearance sang. My son wandered into the living room and questioned whether the singer was one of those weird dudes that like to dress up like women. You can see how precarious a tightrope we walk when we even think about coming out. So for a boy to dare to do something as 'girly' as ballet? Still, we do have Nureyev and Balishnakov and others to look to, aye?
Love, Andrea Lena