Review: FINDING NEVERLAND Takes Off at Clowes Memorial Hall
Based on the 2004 movie and the 1998 play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan," the musical Finding Neverland is definitely not without charm and some stage magic. The story at its core centers around the friendship of JM Barrie and a widowed mother of four boys. Throughout the show, the boys help proclaim Barrie's inner child. However, for us, the Tony-nominated show was slow to take off (pun intended).
We are going to preface this portion of our blog by saying that we have never seen the movie, Finding Neverland, so we came into this show with a fresh perspective. Having been a big fan of the films Peter Pan and Hook as children, this show was easily able to bring out the child inside and have some fun inside jokes that only those who are familiar with them would understand. Also, as an adult, we were thoroughly entertained as well.
Visually, the show we saw was aesthetically stunning: from Scott Pask's backdrops and designs, the period garments, to Kenneth Posner's lighting, and the enveloping sound design. For a show being primarily set in 1903 London and personally having a musical theater background myself, we wouldn't have pegged this show on our top ten of choreographically difficult. I mean, this is certainly no West Side Story, but we can definitely say we were extremely impressed by the showing, difficulty, and precision this show required to perform. Dylan has closely followed Mia Michaels', the choreographer, work during her tenure on So You Think You Can Dance, and he was able to identify her choreographical mark. The choreography and clever blocking of the constantly kept our eyes busy and mind entertained.
Our only qualm with the show was the music. For us, the majority of the score would be totally kosher as stand-alones, but while watching the show, we felt like they didn't necessarily sound like they belonged in this show. Rather, the musical score is more of a hodgepodge of random, adult-contemporary pop songs that feels inserted into the score rather than integrated.
In summary, we would have to say the overly cheerfulness of Finding Neverland did its best to distract the audience from the true story and sorrow of JM Barrie. For us during some of the scenes in the show... especially the ending, that's where Neverland itself started.
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