The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-02-28
THE BARRIE THAT
FROHMAN KNOWS
Traits of Author of What
Every Woman Knows"
TOLD IN AN INTERVIEW
Has Great Time With the Children
in Christmas RehearsaIs of
"Peter Pan"-Mothers Are
Driven From Stage.
TOLD IN AN INTERVIEW

1t isn't easy thing to get an inter-
view with Charles Frohman, principally
because he is never in one place long
enough for you to get out notebook and
pencil. However, when you succeed in
doing the seemingly impossible and tell
him that the people in America who have
for years loved the man Barrie through
his work and do not understand his Sc
clusion from our hospitable shores you
discover, perhaps not entirely to your sur
prise, that simply saying J. M. Barrie Is
like striking a match to the memory OF
the man who of all persons in America
knows the playwright best.
But it is easy to see that Charles Froh-
man, while loving to reflect upon the
great store of Barrieana that years of In
timacy with the playwright have brought
him, yet shrinks exceedingly from con-
fiding any of it to a stranger. You see
Barrie just happens to be playwright"
he explains. HE is really a man of let
ters spending his holidays writing plays;
and the little group of authors with
whom, rather than with playwrights, he
chums, have very distinct idea of the
real use of printers ink; they like to see
the creations of their fancies, not them
selves, in type"
Mr.. Frohman smiles with the eye of
vision as he admits that every man
Graves certain epitaph, and tells of
those Barrie and he wrote for themselves
one day last summer when the two were
off on little excursion in Sussex.
I'VE were near wonderful little Goth
ic chapel after a hard tramp over the
country, and Barrie, sitting down on g.
mound to rest. said with his funny little
Scottish accent: Here let me rest with
the stone above me saying, Here lies
the man who wrote What Every Woman
swered, suiting the action to the word,
And here lies the man who produced it.
Somebody has epitomized this newest
play of Barrie's by adding a few words
to its title, What Every Woman Knows
is better than what any man knows"
Mr.. Frohman shows the manuscript OF
the play, pointing out what seems to him
the absolute perfection of playwrIting
It is very closely written and not line
of it has been discarded in all the re-
hearsing 1t has gone through in England
and America. TT is" says he. -four acts
of a philosophers wit and wits philos-
ophy. What every woman knows is that
when she trusts to her instincts and shuns
reason and logic she is apt to be right
Most people are surprised at the state
ment, but 1t is a fact that Barrie has
visited America. He was over here just
thirteen years ago, while his novel; The
Little Minister, was the craze of the
English speaking world of books He
said he came over just to shake hands
with a few friends. II was a short visit
He spent a few days in New York, a
few In Chicago and Milwaukee and then
hurried back to England. That was the
first time I ever met Barrie. I had
correspondence with him about drama
tizing his story of 1.-The Little Minister"
had sent him a check as his advance
payment, but the prospect of his doing
the work grew simmer and simmer.
Then when he got to New York he came
into my office to return the check. He
could see no way of turning the novel
into q play However, l persuaded him
to keep the check and asked him If he
would not go to some play that night.
Finally he went to see Rosemary which
was being played by John Drew at the
Empire Theatre. ! saw no more of Bar
RE until just before he was sailing.
Again he walked into my office, but very
hopeful this time.
81 shall turn the story into a play for
YOU he began without any preamble, If
YOU give me the little actress to play the
part whom I saw last night
THAT actress was Maude Adams, and
you know the rest
st suppose the intimacy OF understand
ing between those two artists, In differ
ent, and yet the same walks of life, Is
quite without parallel in the history of
the modern theatre. They understand
each other in a surer and finer way
than anything that could be conveyed by
the most Illuminating OF words. You get
lust a little of this. for example, in Bar
rie's saying of Maude Adams Peter
Pam When Peter took flight from my
fancy he found a haven in the spirit of
Maude Adams.
While he has no children of his own.
Barrie is yet the friend and playmate of
a small army of little boys and girls.
But pehaps his greatest happiness comes
with the coming of Christmas time, when
he knows he is going to meet what he
calls the children of Peter Pan .
They are the little lads and lassies that
take the parts in his wonderful fantasy.
It is a wonderful sight to see them come
before the rehearsal. with eyes bulged out
and their faces Wreathed In anxiety, lest
when they are measured they will be told
they are too big to be Peter Pan chill
dren any more. The little folks crouch
down and try all sorts of devices to keep
within the size limit-and, of course, this
affords Barrie great Joy. In his original
manuscript of the playa fact that l
think has never been told before-Barrie
had a scene In the last act in which f1f-
teen mothers appeared upon the stage to
claim their lost children. Now, the prin-
cipal enjoyment that Barrie gets from
Peter Pan Is to be one of those children
their playmate and their friend. But
when he found he would have to go
among the fifteen mothers and also be
their playmate and friend, he very speed
ily cut out the whole scene and drove the
mothers from the theatre.
Next to the children who play the
parts in these Christmas performances of
Peter Pam suppose Barrie is most fond
of Mrs. Barrie and then that they are
both fondest of the wonderful family
dog at their cottage in Leicester Road
The creature is a shaggy New Foundland
dog with really remarkable intelligence
He is the original of Mana, the dog in
Peter Pam and Barrie has forever i'm
mortalized him in that wonderful ingen-
ious description of the way Mana should
deport herself, which Barrie put into the
of Peter Pan One time Bar
RE brought his dog to the rehearsal of
Peter PAM when the dog In the play was
getting up In his part. After apologizing
to the actor who played the part for the
way In which the really hard work In 1t