REVIEW: Finding Neverland National Tour

photo by Jeremy Daniel

I could not have been more excited when I learned that Finding Neverland would finally be launching a national tour. I saw the show twice on Broadway starring Matthew Morrison, Kelsey Grammar, and Laura Michelle Kelly, and I completely fell in love with the breathtaking yet underrated musical. At long last, the tour reached the National Theatre in Washington, DC, and I was so excited to score cheap tickets!

I had some concerns about seeing Finding Neverland this time around. Despite the glowing reviews from my friends who had seen it earlier in the week, the Washington Post completely slammed the production. The Post's review mainly blamed the tour's shortcomings on being a non-equity tour. In summary, an actor who is non-equity has not yet worked their way into the Actor's Equity Association (the actor's union, in laymen's terms). Non-equity actors are not protected by the AEA regulations, and therefore are not obligated to be paid a certain amount for their work on a show. After a quick Google search, I discovered that the actors in Finding Neverland are being paid between $450-$550 per week, whereas Equity actors can't make any less than $1,653 per week. Anyway, I've gotten off track.

Finding Neverland is about English playwright J.M. Barrie while looking for creative inspiration for his next play. One day while sitting in Kensington Park he meets the Llewelyn Davies boys (George, Peter, Michael and Jack) accompanied by their widowed mother, the beautiful Sylvia. Over the course of many weeks, the family teaches Barrie how to get back in touch with his inner child. Storytelling with the Llewelyn Davies family ultimately is the foundation of Barrie's most famous play, Peter Pan, despite initial backlash from his producer, acting troupe and wife.

The show started off exactly like it did in the Broadway production: Tinker Bell appeared and began to fly above the first few rows of the orchestra. She ducked back into the curtain as it rose to reveal Peter Pan dancing around the stage. However, once our leading man J.M Barrie entered (played by Jeff Sullivan in this production), I was suddenly seeing a show with which I was unfamiliar. The original introduction "If the World Turned Upside Down" was replaced with an exuberant monologue. Instead of Barrie sitting solemnly on the bench next to Peter Pan, the entire crew of pirates, mermaids and Lost Boys loudly stampeded onstage. Instead of the stage transitioning to the opening night party after Barrie's latest play The Wedding Guest (featuring the song "All of London is Here"), we were taken straight to Kensington Park for an out-of-place, bouncy song called "Welcome to London." The song "The Pirates of Kensington," which originally introduced the four Llewelyn Davies boys, was completely obliterated in order for us to be transported to the backstage of an unknown theatre, where Barrie sings an underwhelming solo entitled "My Imagination" and tears up the script of the play he's been drafting (about twenty minutes earlier than he should). The show I know and love began in the next scene when I heard the opening chords to "Believe." I immediately relaxed and felt myself being whisked away to Neverland. However, I do not agree with "Believe" now being a duet between Sylvia and Barrie; it makes much more sense to have just Barrie singing the opening two verses and in turn pull the whole Llewelyn Davies family into his imagination.

The only other tweaks to the show that I noticed were the increased presence of the dog (no complaints here), and the finale had been changed from a heartbreaking reprise of "When Your Feet Don't Touch the Ground" to a reprise of "Believe." Though I feel either finale can work, I far prefer the original. For those of you who know the show, you might feel that the upbeat "Believe" would be out of place, given the circumstances surrounding the main characters at that point.

The production value of this show was far less than that of the Broadway production. This is somewhat expected with touring productions since the sets need to be easily transportable from city to city, but I found the new set a cheap knockoff. A stagehand had to constantly keep the curtains from getting tangled within themselves, and the backdrop looked more like a wrinkly drop cloth than a piece of scenery. However, the costuming was spot on, and I remain jealous of the women who get to wear those beautiful dresses. Additionally, I was very relieved that the breathtaking pixie dust tornado (I'm calling it that to avoid spoilers) at the end of the show was executed just as well as it was on Broadway.

I very much enjoyed Jeff Sullivan's portrayal of J.M. Barrie. His voice, though a tad nasally, was smooth as butter and he brought some really nice elements to the character that I had not seen before. I do prefer Matthew Morrison's portrayal of the role because where Mr. Sullivan went for the laughs, Mr. Morrison went for the heart. In my opinion, Finding Neverland is all about the heart. This isn't to say Mr. Sullivan didn't have that emotional soft spot the character requires; on the contrary, his renditions of "Neverland" and "When Your Feet Don't Touch the Ground" gave me chills. In the role of Barrie's romantic interest Sylvia, Ruby Gibbs started the show flat. Thankfully as Act 1 continued, she seemed to dive deeper into her character and her performance became much stronger. Her rendition of "All That Matters" was absolutely beautiful. My main critique of her performance was that *SPOILER ALERT* she didn't seem deathly ill at the very end of the show; her hair was perfectly coiffed and her makeup impeccably glowing. I credit the best performance of the cast to Conor McGiffin, whose vocals were fantastic and stage presence was excellent. I do wish his portrayal of Captain Hook was a little more gritty and nasty, but he was especially perfect for the role of Charles Frohman (originated by Kelsey Grammar on Broadway).

I would like to give a special shout-out to ensemble member Joshua William Green for generating a lot of laughs from the audience and having his character nailed to a tee. He was a standout in the cast, and my family discussed him at length on the car ride home. Additionally, Melody Rose as Peter Pan danced beautifully. Her lines were exquisite and her leaps made you think she might actually be able to fly. There was only one cringe-worthy acting performance. Michael Luongo as Lord Cannan was more successful in creating an awkward and ridiculous caricature of himself rather than properly portraying the stuffy nature of the British elite. I was quite relieved when his scenes were over, and his portrayal made it completely unbelievable that Mary Barrie *SPOILER ALERT* would have an affair with him.

You could tell which songs were the cast's favorites because the energy level would skyrocket at certain points during the show. The show-stopping conclusion to Act 1, "Stronger" (my personal favorite song of the show), was the best part of the entire performance. You could feel the energy exploding off the cast as they belted their hearts out and swung from their pirate ship. "Play," an Act 2 favorite, was a well-performed full-cast number where you could tell they were all having the time of their lives. The overall issue was that the cast was not able to maintain that same energy throughout the whole show.

All that being said, I do commend the ensemble for taking on Mia Michaels' incredible choreography. For anyone else who has seen the show, I think we can all agree the choreography in Finding Neverland is extremely difficult, precise and... well… Mia Michaels-esque. Though I was thrilled to see that the original choreography remained almost entirely unchanged for the tour, I felt the ensemble wasn't quite as sharp as the Broadway ensemble, especially during my favorite dance number, "The Circus of Your Mind." I think if they could clean up those dance numbers, they might get far better reviews in future cities.

This non-equity production of Finding Neverland certainly had its shortcomings; but at the end of the day, I was still on my feet at curtain call (which doesn't always happen) and I walked out of the theatre with a huge smile on my face. Though the production skimped on set and other production elements and made unnecessary changes to the book and score, all involved maintained the show's heart and playfulness. Those core values of Finding Neverland were the reason why I love the show; and for those reasons, I highly recommend children of all ages to take the time to see it. When you do go, be sure to take with you some tissues, your inner child and your belief in fairies.

Finding Neverland began its national tour on September 28th, 2018, in Elmira, New York. The tour is currently scheduled to conclude on June 23rd, 2019, in Evansville, Indiana. Visit the Finding Neverland tour website to explore remaining performance dates and locations as well as ticket information. Be sure to ask your local theatre if there are any discount or rush programs offered for this production.

Run Time: 2hrs with one 20min intermission

Finding Neverland rating: PG

Hillary's Score: 7.5/10
Check out my other show reviews here!

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