BARRIE'S GOLD MINE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 50, 28 February 1931, Page 22

BARRIES GOLD MINE

Did you know Peter Pan as we see him in. tlie> play Sir James Barrie wrote, which is now being quite beautifully done at the Curran Theatre, was not Peter's beginning? He was in a story, and he was in a short play before Barrio thought of making him the central personage in a long play, says a writer in the "San Francisco Chronicle. '' Peter's inception came in a paragraph in Barries whimsical little tale, "The Little White Bird," which was written two years earlier than the play. Here is the paragraph: "He made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the ripple of the water, and catehiug handfill's of the shine of the moon, and he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the birds were deceived and they would say to each other, 'Was that a fish leaping in tho water, or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe?' And sometimes he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would turn round in their nests to see whether they had laid an egg. If you are a child of the gardons (Kensington Gardens, London) you must know the chestnut tree near the bridge, which comes out in flower first of all the chestnuts, but perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the way. It is because Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has come, and the chestnut being so near hears him and is cheated." Prom that Peter Pan grew. Barrie was fond of four boys, nephews of Gerald Dv Mautier, and used to tell them stories. One day his story was about lost children, and flying and pirates, and caves and Indians. Just the things boys love. This quartet wouldn't

HOW PETER PAN WAS MADE

let him stop. They begged for more, so Barrio wrote a play from the story, a short play, not nearly so long an the one at, the Curran. It was acted in the school room at the house of these four boys, with Barrie and Gerald Dv Maurier, and a son of George Meredith, the novelist, in the cast. It had only that one performance. Barrie was writing a play for Charles Frohman, but instead he wrote two, for the mood of fancy was on him and ho developed Peter Pan into what it is to-day. He took the play to Frohman along with the manuscript of "Alice-Sit-by-the-Kre," which Ethel Barymore played so delightfully. Beerbohm Tree had read "Peter Pan" and called it "rubbish," and even its,author hadn't much confidence in it. He said to JTrohman: " 'Peter' is a dream child of mine. It probably won't make any money, but I'd like to see it played.'' So Frohman produced it in London with Nina Boucicault as Peter. And as to making money— England has paid Barrie more than 300,000 dollars in royalties, and there were immense profits from Maude Adams's American appearances in the play for two years, and the book rights and the movies, must-take it well beyond 500,000 dollars. And that' is only Barrie s share. When the play was in rehearsal for its original production the author found it necessary to give the players ideas on how it should be done. One day the call board had this little note: "The difference between a fairy play and a realistic one is that, in the former all characters are really children with a child's outlook on life. This applies to the so-called adults of the story as well as the young people. Pull tho beard off a fairy king and you will find the face of a child.''