James M. Barrie's Concept of Dramatic Action

JAMES M. BARRIE'S CONCEPT OF DRAMATIC ACTION IT WOULD DEMAND A THOROUGH EXPLORATION of modem British drama to detennine, with any degree of authority, the precise reasons for the descent of J. M. Barrie's star in the dramatic firmament. Time will, of course, facilitate the final judgment, but for present purposes it should be sufficient to suggest that criticism finds his work, for the most part, unsuited to the contemporary palate. Critics remind us that his plays do not bespeak a sense of urgency and, above all, they do not preach. This we know was Barrie's intention. He deliberately avoided "idea" plays for many reasons, one of which was that he felt he could not write them. More important, in order that he might capitalize on the contemporary Victorian reaction to, and even fear of, the rise of scientific and skeptical thought, he wanted to avoid the type of social criticism that crept into the works of Pinero and Jones and made up the bulk of Galsworthy's plays. It would be wrong, though, to think of Barrie as purely Victorian. There is so much that is truly modem in his work along with all of that which is reminiscent of the theater of romance and spectacle that to be quite fair he must be placed on the bridge between the two periods or, more accurately, in his own special category. Barrie was not detennined to revolutionize the drama, but the undeniable seriousness that pervades most of his work stands as evidence of his concern for modem man and his problems . It may come as a surprise to some that Shaw himself, perhaps in a rare moment of benevolence, in a letter to J. T. Grein gave Barrie credit for "the relegation of the nineteenth century London theatre to the dust bin."l What most critics find unforgivable in Barrie, however, is his conscious effort to reach a large and profitable public-a public which he wanted to please. Even more lethal was his abiding love for the theater and its machinery. To him it was literally a playhouse in which both he and the audience were to enjoy themselves. One of the common assessments of James Barrie, even among generally dissenting criticism , is that in his own day he was a supremely successful theatrician. Again we are reminded of Shaw-in many ways the antithesis of Barrie -who said that "the popular stage, which was a prison to Shake1 . George Bernard Shaw, quoted by John W. Cunliffe, Modem English Playwrights (New York, 1927), p. 83. 133 134 MODERN DRAMA September spear's genius, is a playground to Mr. Barrie's."2 Granville-Barker declaimed in 1938: Had the theatre he found been the theatre of today, with its many technical freedoms since won-the revived equivalent of the Elizabethan stage, its anachronisms reconceded; the spirit of the Masque and Dance alive again and welcome invaders-he was the man of all others to have profited by them. It was just such a theatre that he needed. Too much to expect him, coming to the craft as a man of letters, an outsider to create one. To be practical he had to take the theatre as he found it. So he mastered its ways and did well enough in them, and often asked no more of it than it knew how to give him.3 Such successful plays as Peter Pan, The Admirable Crichton, and Dear Brutus illustrate this extensive utilization of the physical properties of the stage for theatrical effect. More specifically, upon closer scrutiny of these plays it is discovered that this demand upon the stage is for visual effect. Does this mean that Barrie neglected the ear for the eye? Perhaps it does. At least the traditional medium of dialogue rarely served Barrie as fruitfully as it did a man like Shaw, whose brilliant language provides the main course in what outwardly seems a feast of ideas. The mise en scene, physical action, even the static picture, on the other hand, provide the ingredients for Barrie's dish. The formula contains nothing really new or startling, for it is based upon the most fundamental...