This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/mar/25/peter-and-alice-review

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Peter and Alice – review Peter and Alice – review
(6 months later)
Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw were last professionally united as M and Q in Skyfall. They now come together again to play the real-life inspirations for Lewis Carroll's Alice and JM Barrie's Peter Pan. Watching them interact is a genuine, civilised joy. But in all honesty I got more out of the performance and Michael Grandage's production than I did out of John Logan's 90-minute play, which is an elegant literary conceit offering surprisingly few revelations.Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw were last professionally united as M and Q in Skyfall. They now come together again to play the real-life inspirations for Lewis Carroll's Alice and JM Barrie's Peter Pan. Watching them interact is a genuine, civilised joy. But in all honesty I got more out of the performance and Michael Grandage's production than I did out of John Logan's 90-minute play, which is an elegant literary conceit offering surprisingly few revelations.
Logan, whose prize-winning Red dealt with the turbulent creativity of Mark Rothko, has seized on the fascinating fact that the 80-year-old Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Peter Llewelyn Davies, then in his thirties, met in a London bookshop in 1932, at the opening of a Lewis Carroll exhibition. Logan imagines them backtracking in time to relive their original encounters with the authors who made them famous. They also actively engage with the fictional Alice and Peter. But at the heart of the play lies a deep division: while the aged, hard-up Mrs Hargreaves finds consolation in her memories, Davies is forever haunted by his family's tragedies and the recollection of Barrie's over-controlling possessiveness.Logan, whose prize-winning Red dealt with the turbulent creativity of Mark Rothko, has seized on the fascinating fact that the 80-year-old Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Peter Llewelyn Davies, then in his thirties, met in a London bookshop in 1932, at the opening of a Lewis Carroll exhibition. Logan imagines them backtracking in time to relive their original encounters with the authors who made them famous. They also actively engage with the fictional Alice and Peter. But at the heart of the play lies a deep division: while the aged, hard-up Mrs Hargreaves finds consolation in her memories, Davies is forever haunted by his family's tragedies and the recollection of Barrie's over-controlling possessiveness.
Much of this is well-trodden territory. To anyone who has seen the dazzling 1985 Dennis Potter movie Dreamchild or who remembers Andrew Birkin's brilliant 1978 BBC TV docudrama The Lost Boys, the story of Alice's equivocal attitude towards Carroll or of the disasters that afflicted the Davies dynasty will be familiar. While Logan opens up the subject to speculate on the difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood and the virtues of fantasy versus reality, his dialogue falls too easily into a mechanically antithetical format. "What child wants to be immortal?" asks Davies at one point. "What child thinks he isn't?" retorts Alice. Anyone hoping to see Q and M will find themselves constantly confronted by Q and A.Much of this is well-trodden territory. To anyone who has seen the dazzling 1985 Dennis Potter movie Dreamchild or who remembers Andrew Birkin's brilliant 1978 BBC TV docudrama The Lost Boys, the story of Alice's equivocal attitude towards Carroll or of the disasters that afflicted the Davies dynasty will be familiar. While Logan opens up the subject to speculate on the difficult transition from adolescence to adulthood and the virtues of fantasy versus reality, his dialogue falls too easily into a mechanically antithetical format. "What child wants to be immortal?" asks Davies at one point. "What child thinks he isn't?" retorts Alice. Anyone hoping to see Q and M will find themselves constantly confronted by Q and A.
Where Logan succeeds is in portraying the pleasure and pain of becoming an iconically inspirational figure, and in providing two gift roles for actors. One of Judi Dench's great strengths, seen in countless Shakespearean heroines such as Viola and Beatrice, is her ability to combine ecstasy and melancholy, witnessed in abundance here. When, as the aged Alice, she recalls "golden afternoons all gone away", you get an instant sense of the glory and transience of human life. Equally astonishing is the image when, as a young woman, she agrees to marry Reggie Hargreaves: Dench's features flicker between delight and regret at the thought of opportunities missed. And I shall not soon forget the moment when a sceptical Davies asks her if she would have him believe in fairies, and she replies "Why not?" It is done on the quickest of breaths, and says everything about Alice's, and indeed Dench's, capacity for wonderment.Where Logan succeeds is in portraying the pleasure and pain of becoming an iconically inspirational figure, and in providing two gift roles for actors. One of Judi Dench's great strengths, seen in countless Shakespearean heroines such as Viola and Beatrice, is her ability to combine ecstasy and melancholy, witnessed in abundance here. When, as the aged Alice, she recalls "golden afternoons all gone away", you get an instant sense of the glory and transience of human life. Equally astonishing is the image when, as a young woman, she agrees to marry Reggie Hargreaves: Dench's features flicker between delight and regret at the thought of opportunities missed. And I shall not soon forget the moment when a sceptical Davies asks her if she would have him believe in fairies, and she replies "Why not?" It is done on the quickest of breaths, and says everything about Alice's, and indeed Dench's, capacity for wonderment.
Whishaw is equally memorable as Peter. There is a haggard intensity about his straggle-bearded features that tell you, from the first second when you see him uneasily prowling the London bookshop, that he is a man marked for tragedy. He also makes you aware of the lifelong punishment of being identified with a particular character, and disgustedly spits out his horror at such headlines as "Peter Pan joins the army." In the key passage in the play, Whishaw strenuously denies there was anything physical about Barrie's love, while arguing that there was an even greater molestation about being forced to reckon with things beyond his years.Whishaw is equally memorable as Peter. There is a haggard intensity about his straggle-bearded features that tell you, from the first second when you see him uneasily prowling the London bookshop, that he is a man marked for tragedy. He also makes you aware of the lifelong punishment of being identified with a particular character, and disgustedly spits out his horror at such headlines as "Peter Pan joins the army." In the key passage in the play, Whishaw strenuously denies there was anything physical about Barrie's love, while arguing that there was an even greater molestation about being forced to reckon with things beyond his years.
Grandage directs the actors with his customary unobtrusive excellence, and Nicholas Farrell as Carroll and Derek Riddell as Barrie flesh out rather thinly written characters to remind us that two masterpieces of children's literature derived from wounded spirits. Christopher Oram's designs also wittily use the framework and painted flats of a Pollock's Toy Theatre to whisk us back into the worlds of Neverland and Wonderland. It's not a play that shocks or startles by its insights, but the reward lies in watching Dench and Whishaw recreate the agony and the ecstasy of inherited fame.Grandage directs the actors with his customary unobtrusive excellence, and Nicholas Farrell as Carroll and Derek Riddell as Barrie flesh out rather thinly written characters to remind us that two masterpieces of children's literature derived from wounded spirits. Christopher Oram's designs also wittily use the framework and painted flats of a Pollock's Toy Theatre to whisk us back into the worlds of Neverland and Wonderland. It's not a play that shocks or startles by its insights, but the reward lies in watching Dench and Whishaw recreate the agony and the ecstasy of inherited fame.
Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.