Standout performances elevate ART’s ‘Finding Neverland’

Don’t come to Finding Neverland expecting to see Peter Pan and Wendy flying through the air. Director Diane Paulus and the other creators of the new musical are after a more earthbound kind of magic. Not that the headed-for-Broadway show, at the American Repertory Theater through Sept. 28, lacks for the bravura stagecraft that’s a staple of Paulus’s reign as ART artistic director. But the big, family-friendly show’s point is the way a childlike imagination can act as a balm for real-world pain. Set in London in 1904, Finding Neverland tells the story of how blocked playwright and unhappy husband J.M. Barrie gets his groove back with the help of the widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her four sons. Barrie reconnects with his inner child long enough to write Peter Pan, then — spoiler alert — mans up when tragedy strikes the family a second time. As Barrie and Sylvia, Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, TV’s “Smash”) and Laura Michelle Kelly sung terrifically and with heart in Wednesday’s opening night performance. Kelly’s big first-act solo number, “All That Matters,” and their second-act duet, “What You Mean to Me,” brought a roar of approval from the house.