Last night was the live special of Peter Pan, starring Girls‘ Allison Williams in the title role and also featuring Christopher Walken as Captain Hook. Unlike Carrie Underwood’s turn in the live production of The Sound of Music, this was generally considered a success, if a bit long and boring. The show clocked in at three hours and didn’t change enough of the original source material to keep everyone’s interest. Williams is said to have done a passable to decent job, I’ve watched some of it and her singing voice was excellent. If she was lip syncing at any point it was hard to tell. Williams’ British accent was a bit wonky, but it wasn’t overly noticeable and she made up for it with a solid performance.
The most buzz is centering around Christopher Walken’s bizarre performance. Walken came in as Captain Hook about a half hour in to the show. He of course delivered his lines in that halting way of his, which doesn’t translate well to a live performance. He kept looking down and off into the distance. When Walken starting singing and dancing he came onto his own, though. There was something so delightful and campy about him. Here’s People Magazine’s assessment of the show, and they have more at the source.
Allison Williams of Girls made a much more committed Peter than Carrie Underwood did a Maria von Trapp in last year’s endless Sound of Music Live!, and Christopher Walken’s extremely peculiar Captain Hook was a triumph.
Maybe a disaster. But more of a triumph.
Williams, her hair boyishly short in the androgynous tradition of actresses cast in the title role, looked like Keira Knightley’s brother. Which is precisely how Peter Pan should look. And her singing was both firm and light for Peter’s songs, including the standards I Gotta Crow and I Won’t Grow Up.
What was lacking was any rough-and-tumble humor – isn’t there a degree of macho self-consciousness and posturing in Peter? Williams was a bit posh.
But odd inconsistencies are hard to avoid with this character and with this story. J.M. Barrie’s tale is strewn with gender, sexual and psychological issues that can be parsed until the inevitable day that Neverland is gentrified and converted into condos.
For anyone anticipating Walken as Hook, his entrance in the role was so strange the entire production temporarily ground to a halt.
Walken seemed reluctant to look anywhere but down, as if Hook were worried about tripping on the knots in his ship’s wooden floor. He worked his way through the dialogue and lyrics with a slowness that was occasionally sinuous, and sometimes, almost aggressive, as if he fully intended to refuse to walk any plank he might be shown.
[From People]
In the live performance, they changed the lyrics to the original racist “Ugg-A-Wugg” song, performed by Tiger Lilly, her crew, Peter Pan, and The Lost Boys. The NBC production hired a Native American songwriter to rewrite the gibberish song to be more authentic. The Hollywood Reporter writes that there was still a race issue in the show in that The Lost Boys were mostly white (I did spot at least one minority Lost Boy) while Tiger Lily’s gang was racially diverse.
Overall, the show went off without a hitch. There’s still the matter of how long it was and whether these type of old school musicals translate well to the small screen. I don’t think they do, but people are watching them. Even if they’re hate-watching, they’re still watching.
Here’s Christopher Walken doing Hook’s Waltz.
Allison Williams singing about Neverland to Wendy
And the “I’m Flying” sequence:
photos are screenshots from preview clips above, courtesy of NBC
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