"THE SECRET OF BARRIES CHARM."

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 13

"THE SECRET OF BARRIES CHARM."

— _ — « . The extraordinary popularity of Barrie in the United States is a subject of discussion in tho American Press, and the question has arisen — Wherein lies the secret oj his popularity! Mr. Howells, in Harper's Weekly, says that he is impressed, first of all, by t/'he sweetness of the Barrie plays. "They have a gentle irony," he says, ."which is almost a caress ; a sympathy with amusing innocence in whatever form, with a confidential wink for the more sophisticated witness ; an endearing kindliness, a charming domesticity, with a trust of the spectator's intelligence and temperament which is flattering to the best in him." The second Suality emphasised by Mr. Howells is lat of domesticity. He writes on this poipfc: "There is ao hint of love-making between Peter Pan and Wendy, even when they are playing father and mother to the Lost Boys. She is just tho mother they have longed for, because mothering is her instinct, as it is that of the young girl (I 'forget her name) in 'Little Mary, 1 who adopts all the children she can lay hands on. Motherliness is what Mr. Barrje is always finding out in women, who are supposed by most dramatists to be mainly sweethearts and wives at the best, and flirts and adulteresses at the worst. Ho has thus added a grace to comedy which has seemed beyond or beside the reach of its art, and has probably endeared himself to a much larger public than would like to own it. Motherliness, hungry and helpless enough, is the note of the homing woman in 'Alice Sit-by- the-Fire,' who returns to the children separated almost their whole lives from her by exile in India, and who loves them so much that she does not know how to have them, and all but spoils her chance with them. The piece is, of course, on its surface a satire on romantic girlhood _ impassioned and misled by the emotional drama. The well-grown-up daughter of Alice has so often seen erring woman 'saved' by self-sacrificing friends, who opportunely arrive at supreme moments to take the blame of guilty appearances on themselves, that, when she imagines her pretty and still young mother in love with a friend of the husband and father, she desires nothing better than to conceal herself in the young man's. rooms, and to 'save' her mother by claiming him for her own lover. The fact that her father comes with her mother to tho wicked rendezvous does not affect her position. To the very last she believes that she has 'saved' her mother, and when, late at night after they have all returned home, she hears hor father storming at hor mother for reminding him of the depreciation of rupees, she steals upon thorn in her night-gown, and joins their hands in a stage-forgiveness. The whole affair is delicious comedy." There is never anything so novel in the arts, says Mr. Howells, as the truth ; and "in these pieces of Mr. Barries, especially the last, he has divined something quite new in the poor old world which often likes to put such a wicked mask over its simple and harmless face." Mr. Howells concludes: <f ln a very manly way it is optimism of tho best type. It is the same world which Mr. Pinero and Mr. Jones, and that unhappy Oscar Wilde (artistically the peer of either) have shown in different and not less faithful phrases ; but now we see that it is often not such a bad world ; for the most part it iB a very fair world, and even a very good world. Wo owe much to ftl tho modern English dramatists, but 1 Mr, Barrie seems likely to make us most deeply his debtor, ospocially since Mr. Gilbert, his only rival in fantasy, fantasies no more. Even Mr. Gilbert at his best had not Mr. Barries sweetness ; that is so nearly ail his own that I can think of but one other dramatist to bp named with him for it, and I am rather glad that this was an American, tho late James A. Hearn."

An English correspondent -writes to Melbourne Punch 1—"I1 — "I ran across Alma Gray, so well known to Bijou and Tivoli audiences in Australia as 'Little Alma Gray 1 tlie other night at tho London Pavilion, where she was doing an Australian scena, called 'My Littlo Bush Girl.' Alma is undoubtedly making a big namo for herself this side. She wae for some time playing with Eugene Stratton in his scena, 'The Black Pearl.' Alma is booked for Paris in July, and for principal girl in the Birmingham pantomime at Christmas. Her sister, Pearl, who w}H be remembered in many juvenile parts, is with Miss Alma in London. Alma apd Pearl Gray are, of course, the daughters of the late Miss Ruth Gray (Mrs. Alfred Bootbinan) whose versatile .acting in all parts is still within our