THE BLUE BIRD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3085, 30 April 1913, Page 65

THE BLUE BIRD.

So many of my readers are more or less familiar with the work of Maurice Maeterlinck, and so many of his books have been discussed in this friendly corner of ours, that I may be pardoned a foreword on “The Blue Bird.” It has been variously described, this charming fantasy, as a fairy play, and as a pantomime! while other critics have compared its fanciful beautv to the charm of Barry’s “Peter Pan.” “’The Blue Bird” is indeed a fairy story, but it is presented in the guise of a dream. That is a point which it seems to me essential to remember, for it is the genius with which Maeterlinck has combined the incongruities of a child’s dream, with the exquisite imaginings of a poet and the wisdom of a humourous philosopher, which, makes the play the wonder that It is. The scenic effects, in their poetry of conception and their perfect stagecraft, are amazingly beautiful; we have had nothing like them in the Dominion before. The stage-setting of “Kismet’’ was wonderful; it w r as the apotheosis of georgcous realism; the stage effects of “The Blue Bird” are the climax of aesthetic beauty and whimsical humour. You remember the story? How the children of the woodcutter, Daddy Tyl, awaking from their first sleep, hear "the* sounds of music from the house of their rich neighbours, and run to the window to watch the light streaming from the open windows, and the arrival of the richly-dressed guests. Creeping back to bed, they dream the lovely fantasy of the search for the mystic blue bird. It is the fairy Berylune who sends the little brother and sister upon the quest, and it is to restore her daughter to health that she desires this mystic bird, which alone can bring one the desire of the heart. How the common “things” of the simple househould —water, fire, sugar, milk, light, and, most important of ail, the two wellbeloved pets of Tyltyl and Mytyl, their dog and cat —accompany them on their strange and eventful search for the Blue Bird, which symbolises happiness. How, after adventures in which amazement, joy, terror, and delight are mingled with all the fantastic incongruity of a dream, the two little searchers return to their simple home, to the love of father and mother, to find that here is happiness greater than the joy of the unattainable. One of the most perfectly beautiful scenes is the “Kingdom of the Future,” where, in the countless halls of azure, dwelt the sweet souls of the unborn. Everything is blue, a glorious transcendent blue, and the crowds of little children who flit hither and thither, and cling to the robes of Father Time, imploring their turn to be born, are all suffused with that wondrous, unearthly blue. Comes the galley of Time, its white sails spread, and the fortunate (?) little ones whose hour ha? arrived are borne away to the longedfor earth life. Delicately lovely is the dream forest, with its hidden lake, and the Mist Maidens weaving mystic dances between the shadowy trees, and even as one watches, there is disclosed in the deepening sunlight of the morning the “Land of Memory.” There is no more lovely lesson among all the gentle philosophies of the fairy play than the pathetic pleading of the old grandparents; “Think of us, dear children, think of ns every day, for then we shall see von and be no longer lonely.’’ If only I had space ] should love to describe, for the benefit ■ .’ many a country friend and reader, the exquisite beauty of the scene in the Halls of Night; but there will be others to do that : and perhaps what I have said may induce some country dwellers to make an effort to go themselves, and, if possible, send the children, to Maeterlinck’s “Blue Bird.” EMMELINE.