New-York tribune., 1911-02-12
STAGE NOTES

They say that Pinero's new comedy
Preserving Mr.. Panmure," lis fuller than
anv Of his other PLAYS Of quotable and
memorable. quaint and quizzical lines.
And, according to report. 1t is playing 20
crowded houses, and there is an enormous
advance sale OF seats.
It would seem difficult TO write anything
new about Peter Pam" but George r.
Sims has done Sc: Being" he says. "a
boy who has never grown up-all men are
boys who never grow up-I was taken the
other afternoon by a young lady friend OF
mine who is growing up TO see Peter Pan
at the Duke OF Yorks. Now. I am ashamed
TO admit that | have never seen the i'm
mortal boy before. OF course / loved him.
= who could help it? And loved the clock
odile. But the character that appealed to
me more than all the others in the play
was Captain Hook. think he is absolutely
the greatest stage creation OF modern
times, and | am not sure that I would not
rather have written the character OF Cap
tain Hook than the character OF Hamlet.
The only thing against the character is
that it is so absolutely true to nature-I
know dozens OF Captain Hooks-and the
other characters round him are more or
less fantastic and fairyesque. Mr.. Dar-
ling is not a real papa, but mischievous
elf papa who is carried about in a dog ken
nel and the lost boys are all giris-and
look it-and only Wendy and Mrs. Darling
are real flesh and blood, like Captain Hook,
only, of course, much nicer flesh and blood.
But the whole story is an enchanting
make-believe and just what pantomime
will be in the years to come when poets
write 1t for the playhouse and all the hor-
rid problem plays are dead and buried in
the vaults Of the British Museum"
The Witch was a play Of Norwegian
life. At The New Theatre. for some unex-
planned reason, IT was twisted into a setting
of early New England life. John Masefeld
has made the translation for the Court
Theatre, London, where Norway comes to
her own again.
Those who have read or seen acted the
plays of the late Mr.. John NJ. Synge, Mr..
Yeats and the other leading dramatists of
the Irish Renaissance must have noticed
how frequently descriptions of the color OF
the human body occur in their dialogue
Mr. Stopford Brooke, in his introduction to
Mr. T. w Rolleston's High Deeds of
Finn, and Other Bardic Romances OF An
cient Ireland" notices the same peculiar
ty in the Irish tale tellers down to the
present day. and quotes the following de-.
scription Of Etan in the story of Etain and
Midir:
Her hair before she loosed II was done
in two mighty tresses, Yellow like the
flower Of the waterhag, each tress being
plated in four strands. and at the end Of
each strand a little golden ball. When she
laid aside her mantle her arms came
through the armhoes of her tunic white
as the snow of a single night, and her
cheeks were ruddy as the foxgloves. Even
and small were her teeth. as If a shower of
pearls had fallen into her mouth. Her eyes
were hyacinth blue, her lips scarlet as the
rowanberry, her shoulders round and white.
her fingers long and her nails smooth and
pink. Her feet also were slim and white
as sea foam. The radiance of the moon
was in her face. pride in her brows the
light OF wooing in her eyes"
Such passage is not only beautiful, but
essentially dramatic, says THE Pail Mall
Gazette" for il enables a figure TO stand
forth to what Hamlet called the minds
eye" as clearly as though it were actually
walking the stage.