Peter and the Starcatcher at the Orpheum Theatre

The Peter and the Starcatcher Tour Company. Photo: Jenny Anderson

Throw out your idea of what a Broadway show is supposed to be. Peter and the Starcatcher, now playing at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, has a new take: silly (but it’s clever-silly) goofy fun, fun, fun. If you like physical comedy lighted salted with clowning and classic cartoons sensibilities, this is your show.

Ever wonder why Peter Pan didn’t want to grow up, and why he landed on that island of lost boys? Me neither. But Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson did, so they wrote a novel about it. That was so funny that Rick Elice turned it into a play, and directors Roger Rees, a Tony Award-winner, and Tony Award-nominee Alex Timbers, thought it was so funny that they made a dozen actors play dozens of parts (mostly without leaving the stage) in a joyous manic display of silly fun.

With all the highly choreographed movement, the show has the feel of a musical comedy, but with less than a handful of songs, it’s not that. It’s loaded with lazzi, those comic bits that cycle through commedia dell’arte plays, but it’s not that, either. But it is part circus and part quest, with a dandy “what if” to drive the plot, and all of it awash in a bucketful of one-liners and stand-up jokes. Let’s give it a name: theater-for-the-fun-of-it. And why not?

Expertly staged with minimal props, the show bounces and careens from one locale to another—the high seas, the hold of a ship, a tropical island, the island jungle—with little more than two toy ships, sticks for spears and a rope that becomes the rolling surf, the outline of the ships’ bow, a mirror, and a few other things (it was hard to keep track).

The actors serve as narrators and characters, stepping in and out of the action with ease. Really, it reminded me of children at play. “I’m going to be a pirate now and you’re the captain,” and poof! A band of pirates and a captain appear. Or singing and dancing pirates playing mermaids.

The lovable bad guy and Captain Hook double, Black Stache, played by John Sanders, gets a bundle of great lines and crazy schtick, searching for the trunk that he believes holds a great treasure, a “trunk as elusive as the melody in a Phillip Glass number.” It’s enough to “put his piratical bvd’s in a twist.”

Megan Stern plays the plucky Molly, a starcatcher apprentice, working under her father’s tutelage. Stern holds up well to the boisterous all-male crew, tossing off tiny barbs to one and all, charging headlong into unknown adventure, and winning the hearts of the three lost “pigs,” stashed in … uh … Stasch’s ship’s hold. Luke Smith as Smee was canny enough to get a laugh out of every variation of the “It’s me … no, Smee” theme. Joey deBettencourt as the boy/Peter Pan was appealing, as he should be, but although his character’s name is in the title, it’s not really Peter’s show. Black Stasch wins this audience.

The play picked up five Tony’s in 2012, mostly for technical accomplishment. Recommended by the producers for ages 10 and up. The show runs only through the weekend with two performances on Sunday.