The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-03
. EVIEWING the drama of the month in Golfers for November
 25 MT. Arthur Ruhl says of Miss

TX month in Golfers TOT NoNeihper 25 Mr. Arthur Ruhl says of Miss Adams in Barrie's Peter Pan:"
 To attempt to review the uncharted, exquisite voyagngs of the Barrie imagi- nation is at best, only picking the petals off the wind-fio to see what it is like. Done by any one else, Peter Pan'' would be-whatever you say-an extravaganza, Christmas pantomime. What it is now depends pretty much on what the insides of your heads are like The Barrie spirit now tenderly, intimately human, now Gusive and almost gnome-lke, quintes- sentia1ly self-conscious, without so to say, being aware of it-coasts all shores, ficl<ering from one to the other as Tinker Bells light flickers here and there over the back-drop. One kind of fun is just to watch this exquisite steering between half a dozen kinds of things, this ming ling of reality and fantasy. melodrama, poetry and grotesquery-just to see the man ignore all the rules and get away with it. There are subtleties, delights within delights. Mrs. Darling takes Peters shadow out of the bureau drawer and talks about it in the same matter-of- fact way that she would talk about John
 
 pirates are routed by Peter's band. and driven over the sides of the ship into the sea, they do not fall off as even a child probably would imagine them doing in his vision of such fight, but half roll. half lift themselves off as though, in spite of their terrible makeup, they were chill dren playing their parts and a bit scary of jumping off, even though mattress is waiting safely out of sight. The spec tatn fak in course, all the time tremendously excited by the straight melodrama of the fight. These are rather obvious examples of the d Barrie evolutions. When sophisticated and sef-conscious metropolitan audi ence almost gasps in suspense because they are told that light iiickering Tn one corner of the stage with faint tin- kle-growing fainter every moment-has drunk poison, and is about to die. and ~ breaks into spontaneous and uproarlous appla use when it's life Is saved, one real izes the presence of witchery that IS not taught in the schools
 Of course, in one way, Peter Pan wasn' at all The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. If Peter had been just boy he would have viewed with complete enthusiasm the prospect of being indicted into an office and. presently becoming president. It is only the grown-ups who know how much one has to pay to be rich and famous, youth IS faireSt only when it has flown. Really, Peter was the boy who grew up until he had the imagination and insight of Barrie Grown-Up, and then ungrew into boy again, losing on the way back memory and everything but his appreciation of youth, SO that when the play begins he doesn't know that he ever grew up at all.
 There is no one, on this side of the water at any rate, who so perfectly fits this
 of al for la1to certain necessities of physique and tenn perament-as does Miss Maude Adams. Even her mannersms-that odd, half strangled utterance in movements of ex- citement and intensity-helped to convey across the footlights the pathos and brave -wistfulness of a personality that seemed Peter Pan himself. Miss Grace Tender son was charmingly fresh and wholesome as Mrs. Darling. and Mir. Ernest Lawford excellent as the fussy young father and the pirate chief-even his lisp helped to rive the latter character suggestion of