Theatre in Review: This Side of Neverland (Pearl Theatre)

	Sean McNall (background) and Rachel Botchan. Photo: Al Foote III

Pearl Theatre closes out its season with a pair of trifles from the pen of James Barrie, cannily assembled to show that he was much more than the sentimental creator of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. Both plays are marked by an astringent humor that seems closer to George Bernard Shaw.

Rosalind, the less well known of the pair, is set in a little town by the sea, not far from London, where Mrs. Page, a rather indolent and untidy matron, is enjoying tea with her landlady. One of the more winning innovations of J.R. Sullivan's productions is that Sean McNall, who appears in both plays, also stands in for Barrie, reading some of the stage directions. Speaking of Mrs. Page, he says, "She has let her figure go and snapped her fingers at it as it went." As if confirming the veracity of the author's observation, Mrs. Page stretches her arms in contentment, and says, "Hurrah! I'm middle-aged!"

This rather odd idyll is upset by the appearance of Charles, a young man on a walking tour. A cheerful young fellow of no particular distinction ("My father says I'm just an expense"), he is immediately struck by the photo on the mantel of Beatrice, Mrs. Page's daughter, an actress of some note. (The play's title refers to her skill at playing the heroine of As You Like It.) Charles has become Beatrice's devotee and plans to ask for her hand, a statement that gets an alarmed response from Mrs. Page.

I cannot say more lest I spill the secret at the heart of Rosalind, but it is safe to say that Charles gets a head-spinning lesson in role-playing on and off the stage, a lesson founded on what one of the characters notes is the dilemma of all actresses: "There is nothing for them between 29 and 60." (Funny to think that in 1912 Barrie diagnosed the trouble that plagues every woman working in Hollywood today.)

Rosalind is a delightful piece, but the Pearl production is compromised by the fact that the 40-ish Rachel Botchan, who plays Mrs. Page (who says she is "40 and a bittock," meaning "40 and a wee bit more") seems much younger than her years. This throws the entire play out of balance and makes the twist finale less effective than it might be. McNall is properly ingenuous as Charles, and Carol Schultz, who also plays period tunes ("After the Ball," "I Love You Truly") on the piano before the show and during intermission, is fine as Mrs. Page's landlady.

Oddly enough, Botchan is just fine playing a no-longer-young woman in The Twelve-Pound Look, one of Barrie's signature works. Here she is Kate, a typist who is hired to assist Harry Sims, a rather fatheaded man of means who is about to be knighted, in writing his thank-you notes. (As McNall, speaking for Barrie notes, "He is too modest to boast about himself, so he keeps a wife in the house for that purpose.") In the sort of twist on which the Edwardian theatre thrived, Kate turns out to be Sir Harry's first wife. Instead of getting those letters typed, Harry and Kate hash out the past, discussing, at long last, why she slipped out of their house one night, never to return.

Harry is convinced that one of his friends has cuckolded him and is bent on finding out the rotter's identity. Instead, he gets an eye-opening account from Kate of the boredom entailed in being the wife of a successful man. Dealing a mortal blow to his male vanity, he also hears how she trained herself as a typist in secret, preparing herself for a career. Needless to say, she is perfectly content without him, a fact that leaves him thoroughly confounded.

Here Botchan, a technically gifted actress, really shines, advancing Kate's arguments with a sunny lucidity that adds mightily to Harry's perplexity. She is pretty much the whole show, however: Bradford Cover overplays Harry's fatuity from the get-go, making him too much the straw man to be knocked down. I would have liked to see a bit more subtlety from Vaishnavi Sharma in the small role of Lady Sims, who at the last moment starts showing some distinctly Kate-like tendencies.

In both plays, it's fun to see Barrie blast away at the sentimental notions of his day, but this production, which was put together late in the season as a replacement for another attraction, could use more assurance and style overall. Sullivan's direction doesn't mine the plays for their full humor and subtlety, and there is a certain absence of style in the production design. Gary Levinson has transformed the Pearl's stage into the stage of an Edwardian-era playhouse, with painted scenery, which is an arguable approach, but Elise M. VanderKley's costumes show signs of budget strain and Stephen Petrilli's lighting is fairly basic.

This Side of Neverland is worth seeing if you are interested in Barrie or, like me, are always looking for the opportunity to catch a rarely seen work from the theatre's library shelf. But this is one of the Pearl's weaker offerings, possibly for reasons beyond the company's control. I feel certain next season will bring better things.--David Barbour