Show: 45
Title: Darlings
Category: Drama
By: Animal Engine
Created by: Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher
Location: Ritz Theater Proscenium
Summary: In this new take on Peter Pan, the parents of the missing children Wendy, John, and Michael imagine where their children have gone.
Highlights: What if the story of Peter Pan is just something that grieving parents made up to work through and come to terms with their loss? Such is the premise in this new work by devised physical theater duo Animal Engine out of New York. Margaret Darling (Carrie Brown) hasn't left the window in a year, and George (Karim Muasher) doesn't know how to help her, until she suggests, insists, that she is Peter Pan and he is Wendy. The familiar story then plays out with the two actors as the parents playing all the roles, and creating the entire world with just six square wooden tables, a frame of a window, a trunk, and an umbrella. It's playful and charming, with an undercurrent of loss when we're suddenly reminded who is acting out the story and why. Carrie and Karim are so inventive in their storytelling (see also last year's Petunia and Chicken, based on the writings of Willa Cather) that they're just a delight to watch, and I hope they come back every year. You wouldn't think anything new could be said about or done with Peter Pan, a story that's been adapted a million times, but they managed to find a completely new story to tell. And now I'll never think of Peter Pan the same way again.