Every few years, Cathy Rigby retires from touring as Peter Pan and every few years, she goes out again with the musical. This woman has actually quit that role more times than I quit Hanna-Barbera. But I'm happy to lose to her in the resignation derby because she's wonderful in the part…and I'll bet you that a lot of the adult theater-goers of the future will cite her as the reason they go to plays. We usually have one show we saw as a kid that struck a chord…and thereafter, we're like druggies staggering about, trying to recapture the glorious sensation of that first high.
I assume her new tour is like her last few…with a set made deliberately simple so it could be trucked from town to town and with a cast low on overhead. (If you look carefully, a couple of the Lost Boys in the troupe are girls, thereby putting the female understudies to good use when they're not needed to play women.) I've seen Cathy several times and I actually prefer her version of the show to the Mary Martin one I watched year after year on TV when I was a lad. They tossed out that weird number where Peter (played by a woman, remember) impersonates a woman with an operatic voice to entice Captain Hook…who in the Martin version was so gay, his feet touched the floor less than Peter's. The Rigby version butches Hook up a tad, thereby making him more of a real villain and they also got rid of that pointless ballet with the dancers trying to dance in bad animal costumes.
Mary Martin was a great star of the musical theater but when she played Peter, at least on TV, she didn't become him for me nor did she fly. She looked like someone's very sweet grandmother dangling on a wire. Cathy Rigby, on the other hand, makes me forget about Cathy Rigby and the wires.
This time out, her Hook is Brent Barrett, who has a magnificent singing voice and stage presence — or at least he has in other shows I've seen. I haven't shlepped down to La Mirada to see this go-round of Pan and might not, as all the good seats seem to be sold. Which makes me wonder why Rigby, Barrett and other members of the company arose early enough to do a couple of live spots on the KTLA Morning News the other day.
They give you a good look at how the flying is done and it's a lot simpler than people think. They imagine computers and winches and intricate programming. Nope. It's just a couple of stagehands pulling ropes and you'll see one in the background as Ms. Rigby, defying gravity and age, soars over the La Mirada stage. But most of all, I'm embedding these to tout the production — which may come near you — and because I admire the effort of the folks who got up in the middle of the night to do these segments for the TV audience. I thought a few more people should see them…and that someone should mention the name of Brent Barrett since the reporter didn't…
This is a link to Part One, in which KTLA reporter Allie McKay interviews Captain Hook and he and some of his crew perform a brief number from the show.
This is a link to Part Two, in which Cathy Rigby demonstrates how she flies.
And this is a link to Part Three, in which Allie McKay gets her chance to fly around as Wendy.
I originally embedded the three videos in this page as I usually do but found that one of them has an "auto" commercial built into it. In other words, the commercial would play immediately if you came to this page. I don't like websites that make noise without being asked so I stripped out the embeds and you can click on the links and see the videos on the KTLA site if you care.