BARRIE TALKS AGAIN

Evening Star, Issue 18022, 17 July 1922, Page 8

BARRIE TALKS AGAIN

A SPEECH TO THE CRITICS. THE DOORKEEPERS AND THE THEATRE. Sir James Barrie has not been_ allowed to carry out an expressed intention that his rectorai address at St. Andrews Should be an isolated and final venture in public speaking. Ho had to make additional i speeches in Scotland, and, recently he was the guest at dinner at the Savoy Hotel of the Critics’ Circle, where, in replying to Mr A. B. Walkloy’a toast of “The Drama and Barrie,” these engaging confessions were made by him. _ Scum! (Loud laughter.) Critics to right of him, critics to left of him, critics upper entrance at hack leading to conservatory, critics down stage centre —into that circle someone has blundered. _ How I wish I could keep it up, dealing brows all around in this author’s well-known sledge-hammer style. ‘‘Barrie gives them Beans”—‘Evening News.’ “A Roland for an Oliver ” —‘ Daily Chronicle. ” Swashbuckler Barrie swashes on his Buckler ‘ Mail. ’ “ Barrie spells Walkley with a small w”—' Morning Post.’ (Laughter.) That is'the kind I should like to give you. But, alnfi! in the words of the poet Pewelli. of the blessed isle, so familiar to you all, ‘ Poga, mem all alula,’ which means that your chairman has spiked my guns. . I remember once going the lengtn ot very nearly telling a critic that quite possibly he was mistaken. It was many years ago, before I had written any plays, _ when red blood boiled in my veins. It is not a bad story, though- unfortunately the critic comes rather well out of it: indeed, I would not repeat it hero_ except that I come rather well out of it also. It marks the night when 1 decided upon a role of conduct with regard to you gentlemen, which, so far as I can remember, I have never broken. An historic occasion for me, therefore, and I am sorry I cannot remember what the weather was like. The criticised was one of my first hooks, a Scotch novel, and the critic was a man to whom I suppose every 7 one here would take off his hat in homage and in proud memory—Andrew Lang. He not only slaughtered my hook, but attacked my Scotch, and picked out one word in particular as not being at all. To be as particular as that is perua.ps aluays a mistake in criticism, and I thought I had him. I wrote a brief letter to that paper saying that this word was not only good Scotch, but was in frequent use in the Waver lev novels; that I could tell Mr Lang in’which, but that as he was at present editing them he would find them all worth reading. I then put the letter in my desk and went exultantly to bed. , But there was something wrong about it, and I could not sleep, and somewhere in the early hours I made up my mind to tear up that letter and never in my life to answer criticism. These two vows I have kept, and in both cases with a happy result. A few days afterwards Mr Lang wrote in that same paper—-and vou are good men if you can do what Hang did—saying that he was rather unhappy about his review, because he considered, on reflection, that he had not been quite fair to the hook. Well, that led to a friendship much valued by mo, though the word was never, never referred to between us. As for the other half of my vow, I like to think it is part of reason why yon have done me the honor of asking me here to-night.

MUFFLER AS AID TO REFLECTION. Hot, of course, that there is anything objectionable in our arguing with one another; but the other way seems to suit me best. Sometimes I must admit it has been rather a dose thing. Several times I have indited a reply saying “Oh. indeed!” or something stinging like that; but my post box is at the far end of the street, and there is also time for reflection when one is putting on one’s muffler. So the retort is never sent, though if the post bos were nearer or the muffler were not one of those that goes round twice, there is no telling. I have never even answered Mr Shaw, though in the days when he was a critic he began an article on a play of mine with some such words as these: “ This is worse than Shakespeare.” I admit that this rankled. I wish I could think, gentlemen, that my forbearance towards yon is owing to deeply artistic reasons; but no, it is merely because I for ever see the fates hariing over yon and about to stretch forth a claw. However, you may ram it in—l refer to the rapier—l have a fear that something disastrous is about to happen to you m the so much more important part of your life that has nothing to do with the pen—-bad news, ill-health, sudden loss; and so I forgive you andi tear up. I am even letting you off cheaply to-night, in case one of you is run over on the way home, as I have a presentiment is going to happen. How easy it would be for some incensed author to follow a critic or two to their office on a first night and give them a sudden push aa a bus came along! But I daresay you are all rather nippy at the curbstones. So you see it is no use my attempting to talk to you about the drama of tomorrow. That secret lies with the young, and I beg of you not to turn a,way from them impatiently because of their “knowingness,” as Mr Hardy calls it in his new hook. 'The young writers know as much about nothing as we know about everything. Yet they suffer much from the abominable conditions of the stage. Through them only shall its salvation come.. Give them every friendly consideration, if only because they belong to the diminishing handful which does not call a play a show. “Have you seen our show?"—“I call that a nice little show.” Heigho. Has the time come, gentlemen, for us all to pack up and depart? No, no, the drama will bloom again, though it will not be in that garden. Mr Milne is a very fine tulip already, and there are others for yon to water. Miss Dane has proved that the ladies have arrived. For my part, anything I can suggest for the drama’s betterment is so simple that I am sure it must bo wrong. I feel we have all become too self-conscious about the little parts we play—they are little parts even in our own little lives. If we talked less about how things should be done there might be more time for doing them. Suppose we were to have a close season, in which we confined ourselves to trying to write our plays better, act them better, produce them better, criticise them bettor? But it can’t be so simple as that. I wish I could write mine better, and I presume I am revealing no secret when .1 tell you that the ony" reason I don’t Is because I can't. If there were any other reason I should deserve the contempt of ©very one of you. I remember my earliest lesson in that. STORY OP HIS FIRST BOOK.

For several days after my first book was published I carried it about in my 'pocket, and took surreptitious peeps at it to make eure that the ink had not faded. I watched a bookshop where it was exposed on a shelf outride the window, and one day a lady—most attractive—picked up my book and read whole paragraphs, laid it down, ■went away, came back, read more paragraphs, felt for her purse, but finally went away without buying. I have always thought that if my book ruul been a little bit better she would have bought it. “The little more and how much it is.” In that case a shilling. But what should: be written np behind the is “The little less and how much it is._ You have all in the course _ of earning your livelihood applied adjectives to me, but the only criticism that makes me writhe is that observation of Mr Shaw s which I have already quoted. I wonder if he has changed his mind? Ho has changed all sorts of things. Hero I must begin to be gloomy. None of your adjectives gets to the mark as much os one I have found for myself—“lnoffensive Barrie.” I see how much it at once strikes you all. A bitter pill; but it looks as if on one subject I were the best critic in the room. Your word for mo would probably be fantastic. I was quite prepared to hoar it from your chairman, because I felt be could not be so shabby as to say whimsical, and that ho might forget to say elusive. If you know how dejected those terms have often made me. I am quite serious. I never believed I was any of those things until you dinned them into _ me. Few have tried harder to ibo simple direct. I have also always thought

that I was rather realistic. In tibia matter, gentlemen, if I may say it without any ill-feeling, as indeed I do, you have damped mo a good deal, and sometimes put out the light altogether. It is a terrible business if one ie to have no sense at all about his own work. Wandering i in darkness. To return to cheerier topics. I don’t often go to the theatre, though I always go to ID Shaw’s plays, not so much for the ordinary. reasons as to see whether I can find an explanation for that extraordinary remark of his. But I will tell you what I think is the best play written in my time. My reason for considering it the beat is that it is the one I have thought most about since—not perhaps a bad test. I mean Pinero’s ‘ Iris. One more confession—l will tell yon what has pleased me most about any play of mine. It is that, everything included and the dresses coming from the theatre wardrobe, the. production of one of them, a little one, it is true, ‘The Twelve Pound Look,’ cost just under £5. My not going often to the theatre is not because -1 don’t like it, but because the things I like best about it can be seen without actually going in, I like to gaze at the actors, not when dressed for their parts, but as they emerge by the stage door. I have never got past the satisfaction of this, and it is heightened when the plav is my own. The stage doorkeeper is still to mo the most romantic figure in any theatre, and I hope he is the best paid. I have oven tried to dart past him, but ho never knows me, and I am promptly turned back. I wait, though, in the 'crowd, which usually consists of about four or six persons, not of the elite, and when the star comes out they cheer and I hiss, f mean just the same as they do. but I hiss. This sometimes leads to momentary trouble with the other loiterers, but in the end we adjourn inoffensively to a coffee stall, where I stand treat, and whore wc were caught by a kinenia machine a few months ago.