San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
FOR BROADWAY STAR, ‘FLY’ CONTINUES FAMILY TRADITION
Eric Anderson, who as a child watched his father play Captain Hook, takes the role in La Jolla Playhouse’s new musical
It would be easy to say the “Peter Pan” saga has had its hooks in Eric Anderson since he was just a kid.
And it would be true, too. But the full story is a bit more complicated, because it turns out that Anderson — who’s appearing as a certain claw-handed captain in La Jolla Playhouse’s new “Pan”-minded musical “Fly” — has some hooks of his own.
Actual, literal hooks. With a whole lot of history behind them.
“My dad played Captain Hook twice when I was a kid,” explains Anderson, a veteran of seven Broadway shows who grew up in Orange
County, spent an extended stint in Vista and was for a time a San Diegoarea stage regular.
“I used to tag along with him and hang out in Neverland,” Anderson says of his late father’s roles in those local “Pan” productions. “The first time he played Captain Hook, they asked if I might want to play Michael,” the youngest brother of Wendy in the saga.
“I was unable to do it because I was playing Ko-ko, the Lord High Executioner in a children’s production of (the operetta) ‘The Mikado.’ When I was 8 years old!
“But I have distinct
memories of hanging out backstage with the Lost Boys, and loving any encounter with the pirates.”
Not only that: “I have both of his hooks at home,” Anderson says of his dad’s props from those long-ago shows. “He’s been haunting me with this, because we’ve got a lot of our parents in us.”
And for Anderson, those connections bring with them a level of emotion that could put a lump in even that crusty old buccaneer Hook’s throat.
“I definitely am able to give him his due with this,” Anderson says of his dad’s legacy. “It’s really special, and it’s deep.”
“Fly” represents the first time Anderson has appeared on a local stage since the 2007 national tour of “Camelot” came through the Civic Theatre.
That was four years after his turn as the Emcee in “Cabaret” at Moonlight Stage Productions, a gig that closed out what was essentially a five-year residency at the Vista company, where Anderson did about a dozen shows. (He also appeared in other productions around town, including Cygnet Theatre’s intimately scaled musical “Bed and Sofa” at the cozy, 99-seat strip-mall space now occupied by Moxie Theatre.)
Today, Anderson remains close with Moonlight producing artistic director Steven Glaudini — whom he has known since their teen years in Orange County — as well as the versatile, Vista-raised stage star Bets Malone, Glaudini’s wife.
So “the roots are still deep here,” says Anderson. “It’s amazing and wonderful, the people who are coming out of the woodwork to say they’re going to see the show. It’s very moving, and it makes me supergrateful to have these roots.”
What happened after Anderson’s time here was a bit of a whirlwind: He met Jessica Rush, a cast mate who would eventually become his wife, during a 2006 production of a “big postapocalyptic musical” called “Pilgrim” in Los Angeles: “She was the heroine, I was the villain.”
They then fell for each other after another friend, Larry Raben — now artistic chief of the Welk Resorts Theatre in Escondido — helped arrange for them to play the romantic leads in a Sacramento staging of the musical “The Last Five Years.”
Anderson was on the “Camelot” tour when Rush then landed a role in the 2008 Broadway revival of “Gypsy.” So he left the tour to join her in traveling to New York.
And “that was the beginning of it all,” says Anderson of the dozen-year span that has seen him take on key roles in such Broadway shows as “South Pacific,” “Kinky Boots,” “The Last Ship” and “Waitress.”
He earned a Drama Desk nomination for his lead turn in “Soul Man,” and also appeared in the hit movie musical “The Last Showman.”
Rush has likewise done a half-dozen Broadway shows, and is now appearing in “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.” (The couple have a young daughter together.)
While things are still early for “Fly,” it’s entirely possible the musical could bring Anderson back to Broadway once again.
The show, directed by “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller, puts the spotlight on Wendy (Storm Lever), Peter Pan’s more sensible friend and the one who acquires some hard-won wisdom about growing up.
True to its title, the techminded show features plenty of aerial effects — at least for some of the characters.
“There are certain rules to being able to fly, and I’m afraid that Captain Hook — as childish as he is — is also too adult to fly,” says Anderson of the mustachioed scoundrel who menaces Peter, Wendy and Co. in the mythical Neverland. “He’s got too much on his brain. It weighs him down.”
For Anderson, though, staying earthbound is a small sacrifice given everything else the role has to offer.
“He is one of the greatest villains of all time,” Anderson says of Hook. “Which makes it more delicious, because as an actor I’m trying to pull out all the sympathetic stops, so people are constantly having to re-evaluate their feelings about him.”
And when it comes to the larger story, “there have been so many different takes on Peter Pan and the (saga’s) world, but people continue to want to see it. I think it’s a fun mythology to be able to expand upon.
“We pay homage and give a nod to the ‘Peter Pans’ before. But Wendy’s a single kid who just lives with her dad. Her mom passed away, so Wendy’s having to be the parent to her dad sometimes.
“So being able to lay those roots for the Captain Hook that she sees in Neverland — it deepens it, and it gives me a lot more to work with. Especially because it is such a dazzling show to look at it.
“The places where we’re able to find the deep end of the piece are as invigorating as it is to work through the physicalities and the fun props and the sets.”
Speaking of props: What does one do, exactly, with a set of heirloom hooks?
“Wherever we end up next — knock on wood, hopefully New York — I’ll keep them in my dressing room,” Anderson says. “That’s why I still have them.”