NBC’s PETER PAN Is One Of The GIRLS
NBC just announced that Allison Williams, from Girls and the loins of newscaster Brian Williams, will be playing the title role in their upcoming production of Peter Pan. While one would stretch to characterize Williams as “boyish,” she continues here a long-standing theater tradition of casting a female as the boy who never grows up. Seems like she's got the goods.
She’ll be playing opposite Christopher Walken as Captain Hook in the live broadcast. Let me repeat that last bit: Christopher Walken as Captain Hook in the live broadcast.
That's it for the news, but can we take a minute to talk about how amazing live television is? It's really something special. It used to, of course, be how America watched all its televised dramas, and many acclaimed film directors (Sidney Lumet, John Frankenheimer) got their start helming live teleplays. Imagine the excitement of opening night, multiplied exponentially as the production is beamed to millions of homes at once, every viewer given the best seat in the house. It’s not hard to see why, for an entire generation of performers, there’s such a romantic fondness for the era.
It’s a shame we don’t get more attempts at resurrecting it. With the safety net of editing gone literally anything can happen, and it’s a thrill to see the amount of coordination and effort and skill involved in pulling it off. And yes, it’s also sometimes fun to watch it all go south.
It's even more fun to watch someone take it to the brink of collapse and then right the ship, something at which Mr. Walken excels. It’s a testament to how terrible SNL has gotten that I don’t tune in for that live TV buzz anymore, but Walken’s days as a guest host were always appointment television. You got the simultaneous impressions he was completely in control, and that he didn’t really give a shit if it all came crashing down. It was kind of amazing to watch. I’m sure Williams will do a great job, but Walken on live television again makes this a must-see.
