Peter Pan (2000) (NR, 2000)

Former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby stars as Peter Pan in this Broadway production of the musical, filmed on stage. Led by Tinkerbell the fairy, Peter comes to the Darling nursery one night in search of his shadow. He meets Wendy, Michael, and John, and teaches them to fly. He then persuades them to return with him to Neverland to live with the Lost Boys, so that Wendy can be their mother, and make them pockets and tell stories. Peter rescues Tiger Lilly from the odious Captain Hook, and she rescues him from the rising tide, so they join forces against the pirates. Captain Hook plans to poison Peter, capture the children, make them walk the plank, and keep Wendy to be the pirates' mother. But Peter defeats the pirates and the Lost Boys return home with the Darlings to be adopted.

Rigby is the best Pan seen on Broadway, far better than Mary Martin or the cutesy Sandy Duncan. Her dynamic and athletic performance is probably as close as a woman can come to portraying a boy, and her singing voice is powerful and clear. The flying is thrilling. Rigby swoops, tumbles, and spins through the air with reckless abandon, the theater scarcely seeming large enough to hold her. Most of the best musical numbers take place in the nursery -- the excitement often flags once the characters reach Neverland. But this production brings it flying back, with a breathtaking staging of the song "Ugg-A-Wugg," in which the Lost Boys and Indians unite, that has the cast drumming all over the stage.

There are problems. The British accents are distractingly bad. Close-ups of Rigby don't help bolster the illusion that she is a 10-year-old boy. Oddly, the Lost Boys are played by teens and adults as well; the only real children on the stage are John and Michael. Paul Schoeffler's plays Hook entirely for laughs, but has none of that villain's oily menace and swagger. But these are quibbles; updated for today's children, this PETER PAN will have them leaping out of their seats with excitement, singing the songs for days, and dreaming of flying.