In Aberdeen we have a couple of lovely theatres. The bigger one, the one that remained open all along & never fell into disrepair is His Majesty’s Theatre in the city centre. It’s a beautiful granite building & the interior is a gloriously wedding-cakey affair, with boxes, ice cream vendors, circles & velvet seats.
Alice B Woodward (1862-1951)
Caryl Hart
The thrill when the “safety curtain” or “fire curtain” lifted was immeasurable. I’d always assumed the purpose of the safety curtain was to prevent accidents caused by audiences smoking or from some sort of lamps or candles lighting the stalls…but apparently it’s more likely there to prevent audiences from being incinerated (which has happened) by special onstage effects.
Anyway, the first time I was taken to His Majesty’s or any theatre was to see Peter Pan. This is a fact. Trying to find out when that occurred has been more tricky. Peter was played by living legend & UK national institution Anita Harris. Having seen principal boys since, she was actually the best at pretending to be a boy. Although I had no interest in that at the time, doing searches on her was the only way I could think of to try & work out my age when I saw it because I remember it so vividly.
Greg Hildebrandt (b. 1939)
According to scant internet information about this production, I must have been about five. This surprises me because there’s very little else I recall about being five & the surrounding events. For instance, I have no recollection of my first day at school or my first reading book.
Michael Hague (b. 1948)
I cottoned on quickly to the rituals of attending a theatre & how to behave. I could (& still can) suspend my disbelief without problem. Yes, you could see the strings when Peter flew into the air, yes, I knew she was a girl really but no, it didn’t matter. The theatre was a magical place & the only way to be part of that magic was to go along with it. So I clapped my hands for all I was worth when it looked like Tinkerbell might shuffle off & I really DID BELIEVE (for the purposes of bringing her back to life). & I’m not sure how old I was before I discovered it was a MIRROR BALL creating all those little lights that were meant to “be” Tinkerbell, but I have an enduring love of mirror balls & can still sit mesmerised by the lights they create for much longer periods than is grown up.
This might all seem like an irrelevance when looking at the art, but the point about Peter is the desire not to go beyond childhood. As children, most of us are keen to grow up, be older, do mature things. As children, we think being an adult will be better. We see what adults do & we hanker after it, not realising the stress & exhaustion adults face. Often thanks to children. It’s to the credit of adults that we can make children want to be like us. Because of course, adulthood is another con. This is what Peter teaches us. In reality, making children want to be adults is just another magic trick. All nostalgia is a magic trick. Some of us try to get back to our inner child, some think it’s the key to our lost creativity & I’m given to believe that much therapy focuses on time spent as a child.
But if you ask me, I couldn’t face going through all that again. It was rubbish being a child. You had to do what you were told. No-one listened to you, other kids were rude or sneaky or mean or completely indecipherable. They were manipulative too. & I never saw it coming. At first, I’d be suspicious & watchful but in time other children would gain my trust & before I knew it, I was in a game of “no, she’s my best friend” I’d never asked to play & then I was the unreasonable one.
The story of Peter plays into the classic world of children where there are no grown ups to look after you & you face all the danger yourself & overcome it because hey! You’re not as useless & babyish as all the adults take you for! Those patronising fools have no idea what you’re capable of; you’re flying across the city & fighting pirates & having run-ins with huffy jealous fairies…in other words the imaginary travails of a creative child.
Steve Hutton
As a family friend of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Daphne du Maurier’s aunt), J.M. Barrie would invent tales to amuse her two boys who after her death became his wards. Originally a play (1904) & then the novel “Peter & Wendy” (1911), the character of Peter already had a history, as he appeared in a 1902 novel by Barrie, “The Little White Bird.” It has been suggested that Peter Pan was further inspired by the death of his big brother David from a skating accident at the age of fourteen. This possibility adds a wistfully tragic element to what is already a poignant & romantic tale.
Artists have illustrated Peter in different ways & of different ages. Arthur Rackham for instance creates a baby Peter, although it is said that Barrie befriended the Llewelyn Davies boys whilst the real Peter was in his pram, so there may be something in that depiction.
Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)
There is of course the impish – even down to the pointy ears – Peter of Disney, who always seemed to be much too sassy to be an actual believable child. On the other hand, many of the illustrations for Peter Pan are fairly anodyne & sentimental, in other words, an adult’s view of childhood. What Disney perhaps achieves is a view of Peter as Peter would have seen himself, in other words, a child’s eye view of self, empowered & strong.
Like all children’s stories & fairy tales, especially the well-known ones & especially the Victorian ones it seems, there has to be a dark side. They’re never quite what they seem.
In that sense & if I didn’t know better, I might have wondered if Peter Pan had been based on a nine year old girl…
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