THEATER REVIEW : A ‘Peter Pan’ That Asks You to Grow Up : BY NANCY CHURNIN

Forget the pretty pastels and soaring harmonies of Disney. And don’t look for “lovely, lovely thoughts” lifting children into the air in Sledgehammer Theatre’s sprawling “Peter Pan,” playing through Sunday in the former church that is this avant-garde company’s downtown home.

This “Peter Pan” is a harsh, unsentimental look at the dark side of the boy who refused to grow up--a boy who is angry, sexual (sometimes explicitly so) and refuses to relate to women as anything but mother figures. It is a “Peter Pan” for adults who will laugh when the Crocodile (Gregory Clemens) enters on two feet with a swagger, smoking a cigarette through his snout.

Director Scott Feldsher, the company’s artistic director, frames J.M. Barrie’s text with the story of the Old Wendy, remembering the tales of Never-Never Land for her daughter, Jane. Gazing toward the audience through a window in a back wall of the stage, Old Wendy (Dana Hooley) seems sad and burned out as she watches her remembrances unfold before her while her daughter sleeps in bed.

This act of watching, curiously, is the most affecting part of this ambitious production, in part because of its silence. Feldsher’s strength has always been with disparate visual images, rather than a cohesive through-line; his weakness is with dialogue which, in accordance with the Sledgehammer name, his actors use to bludgeon the audience.

They yell, they over-emote, they wear you out, they make you wonder just what they are really feeling under the avalanche of exclamation points.

But as Old Wendy sits up there, looking sadly at her past, you know more about what she feels than you know about all the others, with all their screamed words, combined.

The images, however, are memorable. And the show, somewhat adrift in the first act, seems to find its pace in the second. Instead of Flying by Foy (the harness-assisted soaring seen in most stagings of “Peter Pan”), in one of the show’s most poetic moments the actors move their bodies hypnotically, as if drawing from a power within, into stylized suggestions of flight. Then silhouettes on wires leap across the sky. Feldsher also makes it clear, with the help of talented scenic designer Michelle Riel, that the whole story unfolds in the imaginative world of the nursery. In another clever touch, the ocean is a blue wading pool with the crocodile curled up inside; a single wooden plank connects the plastic pool and the rowboat that suggests the pirate ship.

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Like faces struggling for recognition under layers of makeup, a lot of acting talent can be glimpsed through the excesses. The always funny Brian Salmon has a blast in the pivotal double part of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook, Peter Pan’s natural enemy in the eternal battles between father and son, age and youth, rules and fun. Diane Addis, so deliciously detailed in nervous roles, fingers Mrs. Darling’s neuroses with the dexterity of a harpist.

Michelle Fabiano oozes sexuality as a tall, mod Tinker Bell in sequined boots and hot pants--one of Cheryl Lindley’s wittiest costumes. Lauren Silva stands out in the small but simple and affecting part of young Jane. And ironically, one of the most refreshing performances, other than Hooley’s Old Jane, is that of producer Ethan Feerst, who replaced an actor in the part of Smee and the other pirates at the last minute. He gives a great deadpan reading that is a tonic for the excess swirling about him.

Michael Douglas Hummel’s Peter Pan is more problematic. He’s big and strong but an id devoid of any analytic reasoning, continually confused--intentionally so?--as to who he is and what he feels.

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The original music by Pea Hicks adds to the melancholy tone, while Al Germani’s choreography suggests the untamed spirit warring with the superego. The lighting by Ashley York Kennedy and William Zuckley and sound by Jeff Ladman back up the production with solid professionalism.

It may not be a “Peter Pan” for small children, but it’s deliciously deep in subtext as it points its finger at all the older children (baby boomers?) who have yet to grow up.

* “Peter Pan” ends Sunday at St. Cecilia’s, 1620 6th Ave., San Diego. Today at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m. $10-$15. (619) 544-1484. Running time: 2 hours 39 minutes. Diane Addis: Mrs. Darling

Daniel Armand: Nana

Phil Beaumont: Tootles

Dorrie Board: 1st and 2nd Twin

Gregory Clemens: Crocodile

Michelle Fabiano: Tinker Bell

Ethan Feerst: Smee and pirates

Sarah Golden: Wendy

Dan Gruber: John

Dana Hooley: Old Wendy

Michael Douglas Hummel: Peter Pan

Kevin Mann: Curly

John Martin: Nibs

Richard Rottman: Slightly

Brian Salmon: Mr. Darling/Captain Hook

Lauren Silva: Jane

Ehren Ziegler: Michael

A Sledgehammer Theatre production of a play by J.M. Barrie, directed by Scott Feldsher. Sets: Michelle Riel. Lights: Ashley York Kennedy and William Zuckley. Sound: Jeff Ladman. Costumes: Cheryl Lindley. Original music: Pea Hicks. Choreography: Al Germani. Stage managers: Beth Robertson and Elisabeth Loeffler.