Growing Up, Growing Old

photo of  Kevin Guthrie as Peter Pan from National Theatre of Scotland
Last weekend I went to see the new adaptation by David Greig of J.M. Barrie's classic play.    My first experience of live theatre was being taken by my mother to (I think) the Kings Theatre in Glasgow in 1952, where I was so entranced by the story that I was convinced that with a bit of practice I could fly.  I spent months jumping off the back of the biggest armchair, feeling that I'd almost got it, fantasising about opening our big sash window three storeys up and launching myself into the air.   My mother, always pragmatic, got on with whatever she was doing and suggested I fly through to kitchen once I'd got the hang of it.    As well as the flying, I caught the theatre bug, an itch I had to go on scratching, through school, university and my professional life. 

I spent hours acting out stories with my (older) best friend and younger sister, me as Peter, my friend as Wendy, my sister as John, Michael, the Lost Boys and other minor figures.  I also played Hook and Tiger Lily at times.    I remember when the Disney film version came out, which I was never taken to see, but read a comic version (comics being banned in my own home) in a neighbour's house, but it didn't have the magical appeal of the stage show.

In my first experience as a psychotherapy client, I was asked what story I remembered best from childhood, and asked to rewrite it for my adult self.   That re-telling, from the perspective of a mother, led me to think much more about Wendy; as a child I always identified with Peter.  My father always said he wished I had been a boy, and I worked hard at playing a male role, always in shorts, my hair cropped short, flattered when shop assistants called me 'Sonny'.  I built dens, fought with boys, picked the scabs off my knees to make scars (which I still have);  I resisted wearing dresses, deliberately scuffed my white kid sandals and bought real knives and toy guns with my pocket money.

I went to see this new production with some trepidation, having avoided the play for years, not wanting to blur my vivid childhood memory.  The cables holding the actors in the air were all too visible, and the flying much less realistic than I remembered, but Peter had a bad boy sexiness which I always imagined he would have.    The lighting and set were beautiful, and the darting flame which represented Tinkerbell defied logical explanation.    The Wolf Twins struck a wrong chord - I think Tiger Lily could have been acceptable as a Native American princess, but otherwise I was happy with the show.     I cried at the last scene, in which Peter comes back, years after the Neverland adventure, and discovers that Wendy has become a woman.   The last time I saw this, I was a child who could not imagine growing up, and didn't want to.  When I was 9 we moved house (a huge wrench for me) and I left my unruly male gang and the railway embankment, the quarry, the overgrown allotments that made up our Neverland, behind.    I became a mother substitute to my three younger siblings, taking on responsibilities and moving into adulthood.

The growing old part of this post was to be about my elderly parents, but that is another story.   I suppose I am growing old, but free now of the responsibilities of motherhood, I have the opportunity to rediscover some of the joys of childhood in my own creative work and dramatic 'play' with my clients.  I don't think I'll ever be able to fly, though:  I don't have a big enough chair to jump off.


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