J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys

by Andrew Birkin

  Charles Frohman

  ‘Frohman was in Paris, and after much telegraphic insistence persuaded his friend to come over. … He wanted to give Barrie the time of his life.

  ‘“What would a literary man like to do in Paris?” was the question he asked himself.

  ‘In his usual generous way he planned the first night, for Barrie was to arrive in the afternoon. He was then [staying] at the Hôtel Meurice, … so he engaged a magnificent suite for his guest. He ordered a sumptuous dinner at the Café de Paris, bought a box at the Théâtre Français, and engaged a smart victoria for the evening.

  ‘Barrie was dazed at the splendor of the Meurice suite, but he survived it. When Frohman spoke of the Café de Paris dinner he said he would rather dine quietly at the hotel, so the elaborate meal was given up.

  ‘“Now what would you like to do this evening?” asked his host.

  ‘“Are there any of those country fairs around here, where they have side shows and you can throw balls at things?” asked Barrie.

  ‘Frohman, who had box seats for the most classic of all Continental theaters in his pocket, said:

  ‘“Yes, there is one in Neuilly.”

  ‘“All right,” said Barrie, “let's go there.”

  ‘“We'll drive out in a victoria,” meekly suggested Frohman.

  ‘“No,” said Barrie, “I think it would be more fun to go on a 'bus.”

  ‘With the unused tickets for the Théâtre Français in his waistcoat, and the smart little victoria still waiting in front of the Meurice … the two friends started for the country fair, where they spent the whole evening throwing balls at what the French call “Aunt Sally”. … When Frohman and Barrie returned to the Meurice that night they had [won] fifty knives between them. … This was the simple and childlike way that these two men, each a genius in his own way, disported themselves on a holiday.’

  P.S. from Barrie's 25 June 1904 letter to Peter: ‘These are three of the knives’

  Barrie wrote to the 7-year-old Peter Davies back in England:

  Hôtel Meurice,

  228, Rue de Rivoli,

  Paris.

  25 June 1904

  My dear Peter,

  This is where we are holding out. One day we went to the fair and played at flinging rings on to pocket knives. If you get them on you get the knife. We have won eleven knives and if we go back we shall win some more. … I saw your mother at the corner of the Madeleine and in the Café de Paris and coming out of Paillard carrying a sardine in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. And in the Bois whom did I see but Michael Ll. D. strutting along with his girl. This was a few years afterwards. …

  With my love to you all, I am,

  Yours to command,

  J.M.B.

  Barrie returned from Paris at the beginning of July and joined his wife down at Black Lake. There were no Davieses this summer – evidently Arthur felt that his sons would do better to settle into their new country home. On July 9th, 1904, James and Mary Barrie celebrated their Tin Wedding Anniversary: ten years of married life. The following day Barrie scrawled down a series of fragmentary notes, many of them so aggressively underlined that the pencil went through the page of his notebook:

  Nicholson's 1904 portrait of Barrie

  — Tin Wedding in 10th Year. July 10th, 1904.

  Idea – Husband & wife story, scene caused by husband – evidently they don't get on well together – his fault – she violent – interrupted by visitors with Tin Wedding presents (He hasn't remembered it is their wedding day.) She immediately in woman's way sort of manner talks as if husband best in world – how he spoils her, &c, pretends grand present from him, &c. When they're gone, he remorseful & swears to make it happy day yet for her (thinks he's doing finely) then she shows true self – says can quarrel over little things … but not over the big things. Too late to talk of love & his giving it to her, she no longer wants it. Her own love for him has gone from her, spilt, ended, &c. … She says he can have affairs with other women as he wills. They don't disturb her. Do as he likes about that. Wd like to go on pretending to people happy &c, less for his sake (he had thought it all so touching & all for him) as ∵ [ = because] it's a woman's way, &c.

  — He wishes cd do anything for her wedding day & she admits there's one thing he cd do. Sometimes for dif[ferent] reasons—as good mood or ∵ he's going off to dinner &c, leaving her, he paws her & he keeps up old custom of kissing her good night. She asks him not to do these things as her Tin Wedding gift. He consents, she goes off about business of house leaving him crushed. Curtain. …

  — Audience probably think she is to be sweet long-suffering creature. Her parents, &c, all deceived by her now as always about their married life. She tells him she has borne for long & forgiven & forgiven, but love gone for a year & he hasn't even seen it is gone.

  — She has scunner [ = revulsion] of him over goodnight kiss & tells how feels at night coming on & has resorted to various artifices to escape kiss. … He points out she embraced him before friends – She how he little knows how horrible it was to her – Done to deceive. … He thinks she was generous to him in deceiving guests, but she tells him it wasn't generosity at all, but a woman's vanity.

  — She says … I'm no grand figure of tragedy – not tall enough – too plain – hands too red – I'm just a woman who made a mistake (12 years ago), Mary abt us.

  — She on the agonies of years of forgiveness, self-deceptions, clinging to straws, &c, & how all these have gone. Like stick in fire, flaming, red, with sparks, now black & cold.

  — He says can't we pick up the pieces (of our love) & she says no – love not a broken jar but fine wine – contents spilt – can't pick that up.

  William Nicholson's design for Captain Hook

  * * *

  ‘All children, except one, grow up’: Nina Boucicault as the first Peter Pan

  When Charles Frohman first read Peter Pan, he is said to have been so entranced by it that he could not resist stopping his friends in the street and acting out the scenes. However, once rehearsals began at the Duke of York's in late October, a blanket of secrecy enveloped the proceedings. Few of the cast knew the title of the play, let alone the story, and most of the actors were given only those pages relevant to their parts. Frohman's decision that Peter should be played by Maude Adams in America meant that a girl would also have to play the part in the London production. Nina Boucicault was on hand, fresh from her success as Moira in Little Mary, and since her brother Dion (‘Dot’) had again been engaged as Producer (‘Director’ would be the modern term), the choice seemed ideal. John Crook was commissioned to write the music, and William Nicholson to design both costumes and sets. Ellaline Terriss had been Barrie's first choice for Wendy, but as she was expecting a baby, another candidate had to be found. A young actress named Hilda Trevelyan was playing Nina's former role of Moira in a touring production of Little Mary; Barrie went to see a performance, was duly impressed, and recommended her to Dion Boucicault. Hilda's nervous excitement at being offered a part in ‘Mr. Barrie's new play’, of which she had been told nothing, turned to nervous trepidation when she received her first rehearsal card: ‘Rehearsal – 10.30 for Flying’.3 Nor was her anxiety allayed when she arrived at the Duke of York's Theatre to be bluntly informed that she could not start work until her life had been insured.

  Hilda Trevelyan as Wendy

  George Kirby's Flying Ballet Company had been in operation since 1889, but the scope of his flying apparatus was limited to primitive aerial movements; moreover the harness was extremely bulky, and since it took several minutes to connect it to the flying wire, an actor was invariably attached to his ungainly umbilical cord throughout the scene in which he had to fly. While conceiving the play of Peter Pan, Barrie contacted George Kirby and asked him if he could produce a flying system that could overcome these restrictions. Kirby accepted the challenge, and invented a revolutionary harness that not only allowed for complex flight movements, but could also be
connected and disengaged from the flying wire within a matter of seconds. Nevertheless it required great technical skill on the part of the flier, and the cast were subjected to a gruelling fortnight of instruction by Kirby. Hilda Trevelyan's first day of rehearsal consisted of lessons in the hazardous business of take-off and landing. If she voiced any complaint, Dion Boucicault would merely shake his head and say, ‘Ah, but you haven't tried the Ship Scene yet.’4 At the end of the first day of rehearsals, Boucicault summoned the cast for an announcement. ‘I would like to swear you all to keep everything you see and hear in this play an absolute secret. Nothing must leak out as to what the play is about.’5

  Gerald du Maurier as George Darling carrying Winifred Geoghegan as Michael Darling

  However, a good deal of leakage had already taken place – not least via the Davies boys. One member of the cast had received a surfeit of inside information about Peter Pan long before the play had been written: Sylvia's brother, Gerald du Maurier. Seymour Hicks had originally been set to play Mr Darling and Captain Hook, but when his wife Ellaline Terriss became unavailable for Wendy, Barrie lost interest in Hicks and gave Gerald the twin roles instead. In Gerald's hands, the somewhat one-dimensional character of the scripted Hook began to expand in all directions, inspiring Barrie to make constant rewrites until the pirate captain came to fit the description given of him in the final version of the play: ‘Cruelest jewel in that dark setting is HOOK himself, cadaverous and blackavised. … He is never more sinister than when he is most polite, and the elegance of his diction, the distinction of his demeanour, show him one of a different class from his crew, a solitary among uncultured companions.’ Gerald's daughter, Daphne du Maurier, described her father's creation of Hook in Gerald: A Portrait:

  ‘Gerald was Hook; he was no dummy dressed from Simmons’ in a Clarkson wig, ranting and roaring about the stage, a grotesque figure whom the modern child finds a little comic. He was a tragic and rather ghastly creation who knew no peace, and whose soul was in torment; a dark shadow; a sinister dream; a bogey of fear who lives perpetually in the grey recesses of every small boy's mind. All boys had their Hooks, as Barrie knew; he was the phantom who came by night and stole his way into their murky dreams. … And, because he had imagination and a spark of genius, Gerald made him alive.’

  Gerald du Maurier as Captain Hook and George Shelton as Smee

  Wild rumours soon began to appear in print about the nature of Mr Barrie's eagerly awaited new play, and the Duke of York's management were obliged to recruit additional guards to stop enterprising journalists from sneaking into the theatre. Barrie dissuaded all but his closest friends from watching rehearsals, and even Mary Barrie's visits were infrequent, her husband rarely seeking her opinion nowadays. The only opinions he really cared for were twenty-five miles away in Berkhamsted. He wrote to Peter on November 3rd:

  Leinster Corner

  Lancaster Gate, W.

  My dear Peter,

  Sometimes when I am walking in the Gardens with Luath I see a vision and I cry, Hurray, there's Peter, and then Luath barks joyously and we run to the vision and then it turns out to be not Peter but just another boy, and then I cry like a water cart and Luath hangs his sorrowful tail.

  Oh dear, how I wish you were here, and then it would be London again.

  Goodbye.

  Write soon.

  Your loving

  godfather*

  J.M.B.

  Michael Darling (Winifred Geoghegan) riding Nana (Arthur Lupino)

  Barrie and Luath, whose coat was copied for Nana

  Michael in 1904, aged 4

  While Luath's coat was being duplicated for the actor playing Nana, the Davies boys' clothes were copied for the Darling children and the Lost Boys. Barrie obtained a basketful from Sylvia, together with photographs and a sketch she had made of Michael – evidently from the shoulders downwards:

  Leinster Corner

  Lancaster Gate, W.

  20 Nov, 1904.

  My dear Jocelyn,

  It seems almost profanation to turn your pretty ideas about babies to stage account, but I am giving the basketful of them to those people nevertheless, and the pictures too, and may they treat them with reverence. You know Michael so well that though you didn't dare trust yourself to drawing his head (you adore him so), the rest is so like him that he could be picked out as the king of the castle from among a million boys. He is so beautiful that the loveliest bit of him is almost as pretty as the plainest bit of his mother. …

  The boys will be burning such a lot of candles on the 25th [Sylvia's 38th birthday]! I think if they were to invite me I should have to go.

  Your loving

  J.M.B.

  When school ended in early December, Sylvia brought her boys up to London to visit Peter Pan in rehearsal. Barrie treated them like royalty, holding up the proceedings to let the boys fly about the stage, and introducing them to all concerned as being the real authors of the play. Their Uncle Gerald's first child, Angela, had been born earlier in the year, and Barrie celebrated her arrival by changing Wendy's third name to Angela. Further honours were extended to Michael: Alexander Darling became Michael Darling, with Nicholas added as a middle name so that all five boys should be represented among the Dramatis Personae.

  The success of the production, however, was by no means assured; indeed, quite the reverse: most of the company were expecting a mild disaster. According to Barrie, ‘During the rehearsals of Peter [Pan] … a depressed man in overalls, carrying a mug of tea or a paint-box, used often to appear by my side in the shadowy stalls and say to me, “The gallery boys won't stand it.” He then mysteriously faded away as if he were the theatre ghost.’6 The cause for concern was not merely the bizarre nature of the play, so unlike anything that had ever been presented before; the opening night had been announced for December 22nd, but by mid-December the mechanical gear required for many of the special effects had not yet been installed, let alone rehearsed. Numerous elements from Barrie's original script had to be dropped at the eleventh hour. The ‘living’ fairy, now renamed Tinker Bell, was to have been achieved by means of an actress moving behind a giant reducing lens, but the complications were too great; so was the flying eagle that was meant to lift the pirate Smee from the deck of the ship by the seat of his trousers and carry him off across the auditorium on a trapeze wire. On December 21st, the night before the play was due to open, a mechanical lift collapsed, taking half the scenery with it. Dion Boucicault, who had worked himself almost to death, was forced to postpone the opening until the 27th. The scenery for the final Kensington Gardens scene was still not finished, and as the stage hands refused to work over the Christmas holiday, Barrie was obliged to think again. He too was dangerously overworked, and was suffering appalling headaches as a result. Nevertheless he repaired to an empty dressing-room, axed the final twenty-two pages of the script, and spent most of Christmas Day rewriting what was by now the fifth revised ending.

  Nina Boucicault's 1904 script of Peter Pan. Much of the dialogue was changed during rehearsals, and Peter's line on the origin of fairies appears to have been added as an afterthought

  Tuesday December 27th dawned clear and blue, but few of the Peter Pan company were up and about to see it. Most had limped home a few hours earlier after rehearsing all night, attempting to cover the interminable scenery changes with impromptu ‘front-cloth’ scenes hastily written the day before. Since several of the changes were taking anything from 15 to 20 minutes, Gerald was asked to pad out the time by amusing the audience with ex tempore impressions of Henry Irving – a somewhat incongruous interlude coming in the middle of a fairy play. Barrie was now quite convinced that Beerbohm Tree's estimation of his sanity had been accurate. ‘The Greedy Dwarf’ had been one thing, a hugely enjoyable amateur entertainment for children, but no more a contender for the West End stage than the Allahakbarries were for the Test Match. Peter Pan, however, was being staged before a highly sophisticated first-night audience, dressed up for the
occasion and expecting to see a polished and professional play by one of the country's leading playwrights. ‘Do you believe in fairies?’ cries Peter Pan in his effort to save Tinker Bell. ‘If you believe, wave your handkerchiefs and clap your hands!’7 The prospect of a bleak, embarrassed silence did not bear thinking about, and at the last moment Barrie took steps to insure against such an eventuality by arranging with the musical director, John Crook, that if there was no response to Peter's plea, the orchestra should down instruments and clap.

  George Shelton as Smee, the non-conformist pirate

  In these inauspicious circumstances, the curtain finally rose on J. M. Barrie's dream-child, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. The time was 8.30 p.m. – 3.30 p.m. in New York State, where an anxious Charles Frohman was awaiting the verdict at his home in White Plains. He had more than just a fortune invested in the play: it had become an infatuation, an obsession. Plans were already under way for the American production, and if its London precursor could yield the merest glimmer of evidence that Tree's advice had been wrong, he was prepared to risk the whole enterprise all over again on Broadway, with Maude Adams in the title role. Frohman's ordeal as he awaited the news out at White Plains with his friend Paul Potter was later recounted by his biographers:

  Nina Boucicault as Peter Pan, ‘drunk with glory’ after defeating Captain Hook: ‘This conceit of Peter was one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier boy.’ (Peter and Wendy)