Written by DCist contributor Chris Klimek

Arena Stage’s Peter & Wendy is so swollen with visual and musical marvels one might undervalue the performance of Karen Kandel, narrator of this hypnotic take on Peter Pan. She plays Wendy, along with every other speaking part, but this is no one-woman show. Sharing the stage are seven white-hooded puppeteers, and a company of dolls they bring to such astonishing life that it’s hard not to think of the performances of Peter Pan or Captain Hook as the work of a single actor.

Kandel’s focus and endurance are remarkable. But let us say no more about them, because this show is feat not of athleticism but of magic. Liza Lorwin has adapted J.M. Barrie’s novel of 1911, which was a mournful revision of his 1904 play. Knowledge of the source material is recommended, because this production is such a sensory feast that following the story isn’t always easy. Mabou Mines, the New York company responsible, has some 60 shows to its credit, but one can scarcely imagine a better marriage of format and material than this.

Two forms of puppetry figure in here, the Japanese Banraku, wherein three artists manipulate a single large doll, and the Javanese Wayang Kuilt, backlit shadow puppetry. Meanwhile, childlike invention that turns fridge boxes into forts or toilet-paper rolls into telescopes has become a design ethos. Houses unfold from the floor like giant pop-up books. Wendy cuts up bits of paper to make a snowstorm while the flakes fall behind her. Cables pull up the corners of a carpet and it becomes Hook’s pirate ship, the Jolly Roger. By the time the cunning dog Nana dons a croc mask to the tune of a Celtic “Crocodile Tango,” one of nine original songs by Johnny Cunningham and others, our disbelief hasn’t just been suspended — it’s taken flight.

The end is more heartbreaking than you remember. As we approach it, Kandel drops to the floor the faceless, foot-tall figures who we’ve come to believe are the Lost Boys, then tosses them carelessly into a toy chest. We grasp in a moment at the loss that must follow all this wonder. Peter & Wendy recreates for adults the sense of possibility known to all children, proving it may be a renewable resource after all. As Barrie once said himself, it suffers “no tedious distance between one adventure and another, but [is] nicely crammed.”

Peter and Wendy is at Arena Stage through June 24. Tickets are available online.