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“To die,” according to J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” “will be an awfully big adventure.”
Death – that ultimate, unknowable and indeed “awfully big” endeavor – along with the complicated business of growing up and growing old – is a major theme of playwright Sarah Ruhl’s “For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday,” which the Pear Theatre will present with a six-person cast Feb. 9 through March 3.
“The play is about facing death, finding joy in life and what happens when we die,” director Austin Edgington said. The plot follows Ann (Monica Cappuccini) and her fellow adult siblings as they grapple with the dying of their father, amidst their sometimes conflicting religious philosophies and political views. Ann’s memory of playing Peter Pan – the boy who refuses to ever grow up – on stage long ago links Barrie’s tale to her own childhood past, as well as to her and her siblings’ emerging feelings and thoughts on some pretty big existential questions.
Ruhl, Edgington said, wrote the play as a gift for and tribute to her own mother, who played the role of Peter Pan in a local community theater production.
“The play is sort of an homage to her family,” he said.
The setting moves from a hospital room in Act 1 to the family home in Act 2. “And in the third act,” he noted, “they go to Neverland.”
While Neverland is the realm of fantasy, Edgington said the show, nevertheless, “is really a very realistic story about what these people are going through,” full of moving and serious moments but not, he said, without some belly laughs.
“It’s a really interesting show to work on because it blends different styles and different philosophies,” he said. Ruhl’s show draws on Eastern and Western theater styles, as well as Eastern and Western religious elements, he explained. In particular, it takes influence from Japanese Noh drama, with its tradition of a ghost character that engages with the protagonist, as well as the Western idea of a guardian angel helping to shepherd one through life and death.
“It’s a very complex play,” Cappuccini said. “Very tender, very emotional … I think people are going to be very, very moved by this play.”
The character of Ann at the play’s start, according to Cappuccini, is a proud intellectual and an agnostic who, unlike her siblings, lacks faith in an afterlife.
“She doesn’t want to die; she can’t wrap her mind around it,” she said. “She misses her father tremendously and she wants to believe that he still exists in some way, shape or form.” And while the siblings butt heads and disagree philosophically and politically, ultimately, family love shines through.
“They all come together to support their dying father and each other, and then they become characters in ‘Peter Pan’ and they support each other there too,” she said. “They fly together, they fight together, they laugh together; it’s wonderful.”
“Peter Pan” is a rip-roaring adventure for kids, of course, but for grown-ups, with its idea of a land outside the normal bounds of life and time, it can bring up questions about innocence and maturity, the inevitability of aging, and the shadow of death.
“I think you get more out of ‘Peter Pan’ as you get older, the underlying themes of it,” Cappuccini said. “You don’t think about these things when you’re small; you take it on a literal level.”
She hadn’t been particularly attached to the story as a child, but “after I found I had been cast in this show, everything I came across was Peter Pan,” she said, from the pantomime production running in London during a visit to her family to the Peter Pan BMW dealership on the side of the freeway in Burlingame. Now, she’s watched every adaptation she could find, plus, “I love the green tights,” she said.
“It’s a lot of joy to work with these actors,” said Edgington of his “dynamite” cast (joining Cappuccini are Bill Davidovich, Ronald Feichtmeir, Tannis Hanson, John Mannion and Ray Renati). “For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday” is a challenging show in some ways, he said, because of its near “non-stop dialogue,” but that makes it “truly an actor’s dream. Everyone’s on stage pretty much all the time and there’s always a conversation that everyone’s in and out of.”
“At this stage of my life I love to be in an ensemble play, where everybody’s there having your back all the time,” Cappuccini added.
This is Edgington’s first production with the Pear, whereas Cappuccini has history with the Mountain View theater company, which she credits with helping her get back into the game after taking a two-decade break from acting. Years ago, Pear founder Diane Tasca “cast me as a dominatrix outside a virtual sex store,” she recalled. “My career took off after that; what can I say?” she joked. Recently, she wrapped up a stint on the Pear’s board of directors. “I love that little theater,” she said.
“For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday” runs Feb. 9-March 3 at the Pear Theatre, 1110 La Avenida St., Mountain View. Tickets are $38-$40. thepear.org.
