White fabric drapes softly in fluid configurations with projected white feathers gently drifting down in a charming pre-setting to the show Wendybird. This provides a point of interest for the audience as we watch Prea Millar (Wendybird) sit centre stage gently singing and sewing feathers onto a wing. 

Taking time to breathe and centre herself, Prea smiles as she surveys her audience and invites us to join her in a feminine rite of passage story told from the perspective of Wendy from James Mathew Barrie’s Peter Pan. It is intriguing and refreshing to see how such a well-known story gets ingeniously turned on its head.

Prea’s performance is engaging, comedic and accomplished as she moves from child to adult, negotiating the unfairness of expectations placed upon females to conform to a male gaze and perspective. The angst of teenage years, as the female body changes and boys are discovered, is portrayed with real honesty and I applaud the playwright for not treating those moments lightly.

I find many delightfully original and witty messages such as being told to “grow up in a specific way [was] like they’re baking a cake in my least favourite flavour, decorating it with sickly sweet icing, and using ingredients I’m allergic to. And then they make me eat it.” But I feel they could have been given more space to breathe, to allow the message to be absorbed before rushing onto the next moment.

Working in a shallow, lateral space such as the Dome is a challenge for a director but Zoe Christall’s excellent stage choreography allows free movement throughout. Except for one overly long costume change, as Wendy morphs into a saucy pirate, all other onstage changes are achieved with minimal fuss.

Without giving too much plot away the decision not to use a visual projection of wings at the end is good as it supports the opening scene of Wendy’s making of her wings well. When the said wings do not retract I think this is part of Wendy’s refusal to allow her wings to be clipped by anyone ever again, until offstage comments make me realise this is a malfunction.

AV design (Rebekah de Roo) is clever and the use of a sparkling projected light to signify the fairy, Tink, is effective as are the upstage projections of Wendy herself which are choreographed to the stage movement. Set design (Scott Maxim) supports and enhances the wings elements of the story and gives Lighting Designer (Jacob Banks) scope to create reflective mood surfaces. Sound and Special Effects Design (Teag Mackay) enhances mood well, whilst the all-white costume design (April Angela Boland) maintains the innocence of childhood throughout. This does not reflect Wendybird’s confidence in her own feminine control as well as it might. 

Honest and genuine, Wendybird is a positive story for young women facing the challenges of growing up and is most worthy of further development for performance. It is especially valuable to any young women struggling with the loneliness of a changing identity and finding their place in the world. 

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