Resilience Shines Through

Mrs Howe (Director of Drama and Dance)

Our Year 7 & 8 version of reinterpretation of Peter Pan; Wendy and Peter was adapted by Ella Hickson who knew early on that she wanted to address the obviously misogynistic gaze of J.M.Barrie’s original story: ‘Barrie’s approach to the female characters in his story is not the most generous or understanding. Every girl in the story tries to kill Wendy out of jealousy and Peter leaves her waiting by the window year after year as he blithely forgets that he promised to return for her…  In my adaptation of the story I really wanted to change the idea that girls have to be jealous of each other and compete for the attention of a boy.’

Hence Hickson’s decision to make Wendy, and not Peter, the hero. Less than impressed with the idea of having ‘to be Mother’, it is Wendy who forges a bond between Tiger Lily and Tink: ‘I don’t get why the boys get to be friends and have fun and – but we – we have to be against each other.’ and who leads them all to fight Hook and his Pirates in the final rescue of Peter and the Lost Boys from certain death: 

Our wonderful cast approached the production with commitment and stamina to bring this wonderful story to life. Their sense of collaboration was tested and surpassed when our lead actress, Emily Borner (Year 8), broke her leg two days before the first performance! What transpired was a quick scramble to re-stage the show and movement sequences to accommodate Emily’s boot and limited mobility.

The way in which they pulled together and offered their own solutions to try to keep the re-staging as creative as possible was wonderful and testimony to their growth as performers and theatre makers over the process. And we have to thank Erin Schofield Mellor (Year 11) who stepped in to understudy Wendy a day before the first show, producing a wonderful physical representation of Wendy in the highly movement based scenes in which Emily could not take part. Many of the audience commented on how beautifully both actresses worked together to keep the illusion and magic of the scenes alive.

View the photos from the production here.