Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The audience at the British School of Bahrain in Hamala were wowed as members of Music and Stage for Kids (MASK) staged a magical performance of Scottish playwright J M Barrie’s classic Peter Pan.
Telling the tale of an eternally young boy (Peter Pan, played by Ali Adenwala) and his journeys in Neverland with Wendy Darling (Deema Turkomani), the diverse cast of young, old and somewhere in-between dazzled with strong performances across the board.
Worthy of particular praise was the brilliant Szabolcs Nigo as Captain Hook, who brought a perfect blend of humour and seriousness to the crocodile-fearing pirate, and director Mary Vaillancourt, who not only organised the cast wonderfully, but gave the vocal performance of the evening with a pitch-perfect rendition of Beyond The Stars.
Featuring a vast array of dancers, pirates, fairies, mermaids and, of course, Lost Boys, there was a superb combination of effervescent dances constructed by choreographer Louise Chapman and harmonious musical numbers arranged by producer and musical director, Lydia Martin. Mask is part of the Academy of Performing Arts based at the school.
The highlight of the performance was undoubtedly the ‘flying’ that the main cast members were able to partake in on-stage during certain scenes, a result of bringing in a special effects company from the US to instal the equipment and teach the youngsters how to operate it, as earlier reported in GulfWeekly.
It must be stated that there were a few technical hitches, most strikingly the occasions when microphones were used by some characters, and not others. Particularly, for scenes featuring the Lost Boys, it was sometimes difficult for the very young cast to project their voices to the back of the room and some lines were indecipherable.
There was also an occasion where the overhead ‘flying wires’ got tangled and production had to be awkwardly halted to unravel them, but with such complicated equipment and such a thrilling presentation overall during a three-hour performance, this can easily be forgiven.
– Kristian Harrison
