Student productions are always a case of trial and error. Explorations of skills growing and not yet fully mastered: we expect them to waver and have minutes of uncertainty and confusion. But in return they sparkle with youthful enthusiasm and lead us to lands unexplored, staying in our memories for a long time after the show has ended. Positioned as a piece of magical realism, Brown Sugar Productions’ A Familiar Friend is a story of the relationship between a modern
Wendy is torn between her longing to write stories and her father’s insistence that she takes a 'proper job' in his partners’ firm. While Peter Pan, who is called James (an allusion to the author James M. Barry), suffers from the traumatic memories of his elder brother’s and mother’s deaths. Wendy relates some of her apparently inspirational stories to James, but I found them tedious and remained unconvinced that writing could truly be her vocation. James' descriptions of his past wounds are convoluted and are never supported by dramatically effective realisations of his suffering.
The premise has potential, though I felt it wasn't sufficiently explored: we have to believe both characters that there is something special about them, as the writing doesn’t quite prove it to us.
The set designer (Nusch Bourne) populates the stage with wonderful ‘time trees’ whose leaves are made from books and clocks, though sadly these are never used in action. The design of the student room has an effective set of small posters to recreate the atmosphere of undergraduate digs, and the sparkling costumes of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell are an appropriately otherworldly counterpoint to this down-to-earth reality.
The director (Iggy Wood) has managed to create some really touching scenes in this production – I loved the intimate conversations between Peter and Wendy, and their exchange of magical tokens (a thimble and an acorn) in lieu of kisses. I also enjoyed the scenes with Mr James Cook (Alec McQuarrie) and Mr Smee (Arthur Wotton) who discuss the progress of their attempt at luring Wendy into a business career in conjunction with the invisible Mr Darling (played by Iggy Wood). Those scenes were really inventive and well rehearsed, rang true, were funny and moving.
For me, the production left something to be desired. While the cast performed well, it was James (Peter Pan) and Mr James Cook who were the highlights of the performance. Delanny as James presents Peter as an androgynous figure whose inner world is beyond normal male-female distinctions. She is convincing as Wendy’s seducer and as an unstable personality in search of alternative worlds - clinging to survivor guilt over his mother and brother and seeking for distraction from his pain, though his motives are never entirely clear and it is thus hard to truly empathise with the character. McQuarrie, whom I also remember from a wonderful production of Pinter’s The Homecoming, is excellent in both the comic, and more serious closing scenes.
While endearing in its general thrust, I feel that Bourne missed the opportunity to explore the common experience that could lie at the heart of this drama – the dilemma between following the well-tread path of careers in business and staying true to one’s childhood dreams and desires after university.
An hour which was certainly not wasted but not lived entirely in dramatic suspense.