She’s Ready to Fly Cross-Country

‘Peter Pan” is a role dear to the heart of two-time Olympics champion gymnast-turned-actress Cathy Rigby, but the reasons run deeper than the part’s soaring physicality and the fact that Rigby, by now a musical stage veteran, earned a Tony nomination for best actress with the show’s 1990-91 Broadway revival.

The darker, contradictory elements that many adults forget are in James M. Barrie’s classic--the anger and vulnerability that shade Peter’s exuberant innocence--also resonate with Rigby. That’s why, after almost 1,500 performances in the role, she’s still looking forward to getting back in harness--literally--when McCoy Rigby Entertainment’s all-new production opens Friday at La Mirada Theatre as the first stop of a national tour.

“As an actor,” Rigby said, “it’s the drama, and being able to reach inside and find all kinds of interesting things,” including her own feelings about seeing her four children, ages 12 to 22, become more and more independent of her.

“For me, it’s the very last scene that is so touching, when Peter expects to find Wendy ready to return to Neverland, and she’s grown up because he’s forgotten to come back. He’s aghast, and when she says, ‘If only I could go with you,’ he says callously, ‘You can’t.’ As a mom with children who are teens and older,” Rigby said, “part of me says, ‘God, if only I could go with you, if only I could experience again what I remember.’ It’s a very bittersweet moment.”

Another reason the role is so personal goes back to her gymnastics career, which she left behind after the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

“When I was growing up in gymnastics,” she said, “you had to be so careful emotionally. Even in daily life you were told how to think and act, and you couldn’t afford to let any fear or anxiety show. You couldn’t even acknowledge it, or it would overpower you.

“Acting, and especially Peter Pan, allows you to play the moment, be mischievous, brag, play jokes--all the things as a kid I could never do.”

That sense of joy won’t be lost in this new production, Rigby stressed, but the show will be closer to Barrie’s novel.

“Rather than playing the cartoonish aspects of it, we went back and gave it more of an ‘Oliver’ feel, where there are ups and downs, happy times and sad times. Peter’s life is full of fun, but he doesn’t have a mother, so there’s a bit of anger and bitterness about that, yet when Wendy leaves, taking all his Lost Boys with her, in his bravado and denial he acts as if it’s not a big deal.

“Of course it’s geared toward children,” Rigby said, “but when you play the reality, it’s much more powerful.”

Rigby, whose youthful features and slender muscularity belie her 44 years, is buoyant about the production team assembled for this new staging of the familiar musical--with its score by Moose Charlap, Carolyn Leigh, Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green--which will tour the country through 1998. It includes director Glenn Casale (“Queen of the Stardust Ballroom” with Tyne Daly and Charles Durning, “Company” with Carol Burnett), choreographer Patti Colombo (“Radio Gals”) and noted set designer John Iacovelli, who, in addition to stage work around the country, is the production designer on TV’s “Babylon 5.”

(Another change is that Flying by Foy, a venerable supplier of airy stage magic, has been replaced by its new competition, ZFX, which recently did Music Theatre of Southern California’s “The Wizard of Oz” at the San Gabriel Civic.)

“We’ve been exploring the text,” Casale said. “It’s all about storytelling. I’m trying to be more true to Barrie’s novel, both in costume design and in the darkness of it. I’m working with the whole cast on the believability of the text, giving it a solid base in reality.

“We won’t lose the humor, but it’s pretty dark and disturbing at times, with the Lost Boys’ sense of abandonment, the terror with Hook. The Disney version took the fantasy and made it come alive,” he said, “but the novel is so interesting on so many levels.”

Casale is unstinting in his praise for what Rigby brings to the production. “She simply becomes Peter. And what excites me the most is the sense of joy in the piece that comes through Cathy’s soul.”

‘Peter Pan” kicks off La Mirada’s 1997-98 McCoy Rigby Entertainment season, the fourth professional theater season that Rigby and husband Tom McCoy have produced there and the third time Rigby has starred in one of the season offerings.

The offbeat, small-town Texas comedy “Greater Tuna” is up next, with Joe Sears and co-creator Jaston Williams (Jan. 30 to Feb. 15). Irish playwright Brian Friel’s acclaimed drama “Dancing at Lughnasa” (April 24 to May 10) and “Oil City Symphony,” a musical comedy spoof from the creators of “Radio Gals” (June 5 to 21) wrap up the season.

Finding the right mix to please a subscriber base that seems to prefer family entertainment while attracting new audiences with edgier, newer work, as Rigby and McCoy want to do, is still a challenge.

“It’s very tricky,” Rigby said. “Do we try to bring more people in, or do we just do the standards? Bringing in Brian Friel’s ‘Dancing at Lughnasa,’ a beautiful piece, is a bit of a risk, because it is not kick your heels up and dance and carry on. It’s a straight play that you really do have to listen to.”

Rigby points to some negative audience reaction to their spring production of “Accomplice,” Rupert Holmes’ sly murder parody, and even more to this June’s “Once on This Island,” a musical with an all-black cast, from Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who wrote the “Ragtime” score.

“While we had lots of single tickets sell for that, we also had a few people walk out. I don’t know whether it was a race issue. Because, I have to tell you, the production and the talent were incredible. But there were some people who were uncomfortable with it, and I don’t know why. I wanted to stand at the door and say, ‘Why are you not staying?’ ”

On the other hand, “Family Secrets,” Sherry Glaser’s solo portrayal of dysfunctional Jewish family members, which the couple had fallen in love with in New York but presented with some trepidation, was a hit. “We had no idea how our audience would go for it, but they loved it.”

McCoy has expressed similar concerns in the past but is upbeat about how far the theater has come.

“When I took over the series three years ago,” he said, “it was in deep trouble. It had a reputation of being glorified dinner theater. Now it’s much more than that.

“We’ve turned it around, based on the fact that the work we’ve done has been the best quality we can afford. And we know for this series to succeed we have to provide a varied mix of shows: large musicals, small musicals, serious dramas, comedies, a little bit of something for everyone.”

The run at La Mirada, as well as the national tour and a Broadway run projected for the ’98 holiday season, are being jointly produced by McCoy Rigby Entertainment, the Nederlander Organization and La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. McCoy believes that having a La Mirada-generated “Peter Pan” go to Broadway after a national tour underscores the theater’s growing credibility.

Rigby, meanwhile, would “love to do something original,” but she is almost apologetically content with her long list of successful revivals, including “Annie Get Your Gun,” “South Pacific,” “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “Paint Your Wagon” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

Indeed, even during the nuts and bolts of scene-blocking and fight choreography during an early “Peter Pan” rehearsal, it’s clear that Rigby’s assured professionalism is fed by genuine enthusiasm.

She’s a long way from her 1981 musical debut as Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” when, despite several rigorous years of vocal lessons, she felt so intimidated she “absolutely copied Judy Garland completely. In fact, I did an interview with a gentleman in Sacramento and I swear I almost wore ruby slippers. I had a little pinafore dress, my hair was in pigtails and this guy was rolling his eyes.

“It’s gotten easier, obviously. But I did trade judges for reviewers,” she observed wryly. “There was a lot of skepticism going into it, but then the expectations weren’t as high. For a while it was, ‘Oh, she sings great for a gymnast,’ then finally we got away from that.

“I almost feel guilty when people ask, ‘What’s next? What do you aspire to?’ ” she said with a smile. “I just love to perform. I love singing and dancing and acting. It’s great fun.”

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“PETER PAN,” La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. Dates: Opens Friday, 8 p.m. Regular schedule: Tuesdays to Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m.; Nov. 15, 22, 2:30 p.m.; Nov. 16, 23, 7:30 p.m. Ends Nov. 23. Price: $33. Phone: (562) 944-9801, (714) 994-6310. Other Southern California dates: San Diego Civic Theatre, Dec. 30-Jan. 4; McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, Jan. 5-6; Pantages Theatre, July 28-Aug. 9.