Parents, be they good, bad, or indifferent, provide an innate if unintended benevolence. "They stand sentry between us and death," says a character in playwright Sarah Ruhl's newest work now at Berkeley Rep. Once the old folks are gone, the approaching cliff no longer has its guardrail, and, actuarially speaking, the kids are next being pushed toward the edge. In For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, five grown children dutifully hold vigil at their father's deathbed. But when they gather round the kitchen table for a whiskey-washed quasi-wake, the sentiments aren't so much about their departed dad as they are about them. The siblings banter about death, religion, politics, afterlife, and even the possible reality of Santa Claus.
Even though a new parentless reality is settling in, it's not particularly gloomy talk. "I'd like it if Canada was heaven," says Ann, the oldest of the brood. "Then I'd get to go to the Shaw Festival." Ruhl is a smart writer, and her plays that have found fans among local audiences include Eurydice, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Stage Kiss, and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play. So the palaver in the new play is thoughtful, playful, and yet never particularly revelatory. They display mildly distinct personalities as they share stories, but it's still just a bunch of people sitting around a table talking as a bottle of Jameson makes the rounds.
Actually, there is one ambulatory character moving about in this scene, but he happens to be dead. Invisible to the other characters, their father is also oblivious to them and serves a mildly comic function with his silently grumpy countenance. It's in the next scene when matters begin to take off, and in more than one way. As Anna goes foraging for attic memories, she pulls from a trunk a Peter Pan costume she wore years ago in a community theater production of the J.M. Barrie play. The specter of aging and death recently arrived at their doorstep can perhaps be deferred by invoking the tale of the boy who wouldn't grow up.
Moving into a kind of fantasy state, the radiant Kathleen Chalfant as Ann dons the musty Peter Pan outfit and enlists her siblings to play the other characters (the adroit ensemble of Charles Robinson Shaw, Keith Reddin, Ellen McLaughlin, and David Chandler) as they stumble through fragments of the story. They're play-happy enough to play fondly remembered roles, though they have dark moments when they want out of this dream world where they know their grownup sensibilities don't belong. It's amusing and poignant, but only mildly so. The 70-year-old Ann is the only true believer in the brood, stabbing at the air with a second-tier Tinker Bell prop or hurling glitter at her earthbound charges. A potentially stirring final moment is instead rendered with a wispy wave.
Les Waters, formerly of Berkeley Rep and now artistic director of Actors Theatre of Louisville where For Peter Pan originated, proved himself during his years at Berkeley as a first-class director. But the ingredients in this return visit are very thin. Nothing is ever less than pleasant, and with hints of sagacity coloring the edges, but no amount of pixie dust can quite elevate this production.
For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday will run through July 3 at Berkeley Rep. Tickets are $29-$89. Call (510) 647-2949 or go to berkeleyrep.org.