The Washington times., 1912-03-04
Julia Murdock Tells Hoev Mrs. Wggin
Game to Dran,afSe Sunnybrook Farm


After twenty-seven people had written
TO Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin entreating
her to allow them to send here the Mt
tie play" he or she had made out of
"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" which
comes to the National next week, she
decided that she would try playwriting
herself, though before this the thought
of being the author of play had never
entered her head.
True, she had always been more or
less interested in theatrical affairs, hay-
ing been in her younger days something
OF an amateur actress. Once the late
Dion Boucicault had asked her to leave
the work she was doing--establishing
tree kindergartens In San Francisco
and join his company to play a leading
role in colleen Bawn'' and Kerry
but, as she says, when speaking of this
period of her career, "children's hands
held me on every side-poor, joyless,
destitute children, desperately in need uf
what 1 believed 1 could secure for
them" After due reflection she decline d
Mr.. Boucicault's fiattering offer, hardly
knowing why she chose the soberer.
harder, less attractive task of teaching
the children.
So when she finally decided to drama
tize her own story, 1t was with the
thought that she could protect the spit Il
OF her own book, and preserve Its sim
pliclty better than anyone else. The re-
suit, she thought, could only be an un-
pretentious play, very different from the
accepted forms, hut II might be, amub-
ing, touching. human sort of thing,
natural and pleasing, in spite of its
"Rebecca" had made her own follow
Ing, more or less: at any rate, she did
herself" as the children say; and Mrs.
Wtggin had always appeared to her
what accidental, parent. "If she falls. -
said Mrs. Wiggin to herself, II shall
have been very cruel literary parent,
dragging my child from the spot where
she was appreciated and beloved. and
might shake their heads and say, we
don't like her at all. Why didn't she
stay at Sunnybrook Farm, where she
belongs" "
Shaping the Book
Into a Real Play.
These thoughts possessed Mrs wig
gin, so she confesses, for some time,
before Charlotte Thompson arrived at
her summer home in Maine to assist
in the undertaking. She went to Mrs.
Virgins home a comparative stranger,
and left a warm friend, contrary to
all histories of collaborations, which
ordinarily end in precisely the opposite
way. 1t soon developed that Mrs.
Thompson cared more for Rebecca, II
possible, than did her own literary
mother, and that she fully agreed with
Mrs. Wiggin that the only way to deal
with Rebecca was to leave her alone
that she could neither be heightened or
broadened or stiffened without losing
her individuality. which was the prin-
cipal asset in the play.
Mrs. Wiggin took her study in which
to write the four acts that had been
decided upon. and Miss Thompson took
the barn, and there was much fitting
back and forth in those days, before
Rebecca finally took shape and became
the delightfully."- quaint little parsonage
great facility, she herself confesses, to
getting people on the stage, but seldom
an inspiration for getting them off.
She could write miles of dialogue which
was fairly effective, but when 1t came
to devising a reason for getting them
off stage, in time to dress for the next
act. she was powerless.
"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm"
was finished, and, still more remark
able, was accepted for early produc-
tion. Even more marvellous, those
who purchased 1t were producers who
controlled massive theatrical enter
friendly in their attitude to little Re-
becca, VINO brought so little with her
in the way of plot. and nothing in the
way of properties save a niRhtie
wrapped up in a brown paper bundle
in case she should be asked to stay