Before taking off for fantasyland, you’re often told to close your eyes. At “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” now on Broadway, you need to open them wide.
As soon as you catch your first glance of Pee-wee in his trademark red bow tie and too-short, too-tight gray suit, regular time and space stop having any meaning. You’re teleported to the ’80s, when Paul Reubens turned his now-iconic character into a Saturday-morning TV star. Or perhaps we’re brought back even further, to the show’s cartoonish version of the 1950s, when friends, furniture, pterodactyls and genies hung out in harmony.
The audience screams for joy at the mere sight of Pee-wee’s brightly colored abode. Ditto for Chairry, Globey, Pterri and of course Miss Yvonne, Mailman Mike and Jambi — who are performed by the original actors, Lynne Marie Stewart, John Moody and John Paragon. Even newcomers Phil LaMarr (succeeding Laurence Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis) and Jesse Garcia (Sergio the repairman) get a hero’s welcome.
Pee-wee quickly discloses the secret word that brings on more shrieks throughout the 90-minute show, and when he does a brief dance, it’s to “Tequila.”
To watch all this live feels supremely familiar and comforting, like eating a huge ice-cream sundae topped by a mountain of whipped cream and exploding sparklers.
“The Pee-wee Herman Show” evokes a kinder, gentler era — though not necessarily a more innocent one. With its fierce infatuations, quick mood swings, barely hidden temper and love for deep-frying, Pee-wee’s man-child persona strangely recalls Homer Simpson’s, and occasionally suggests the dark side of arrested development.
Reubens also hews more closely to the original stage show, which pre-dated the series and was slightly naughtier. Pee-wee now sports an abstinence ring, and several gags — like one about our hero getting a pen-pal letter sent by “Lou from prison” — will fly over the heads of the few children in the audience. The adults, of course, eat it up.
The show holds up well, and director Alex Timbers (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”) nicely choreographs the rapid succession of wacky routines and guests — “Someone’s coming!”
Still, this is essentially a nostalgic trip, and you wish Reubens and co-writer Bill Steinkellner had created more new material for the occasion. Pee-wee may be timeless, but that doesn’t mean he should be stuck in the past.