Mary Rose

J.M. Barrie

Description

This antiquarian book contains J. M. Barrie’s 1929 play: "Mary Rose". During a trip to a remote Scottish island as a child, Mary Rose mysteriously vanishes. The island is searched endlessly to no avail, until Mary unbelievably reappears as strangely as she had vanished, having no recollection of being lost at all. Years later as a young mother and wife, Mary revisits the island with her husband and once again vanishes without a trace. Reappearing decades later this time, Mary has no recollection of her vanishing and returns having not aged a day. This play is a masterpiece of the stage, utterly enthralling and sure to entertain the discerning reader today just as it did when first published. James Matthew Barrie (1860 - 1937) was a famous dramatist and author, most famous as being the creator of Peter Pan. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly hard to come by and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Sujets

• Haymarket Theatre

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 17 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528761574
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE

MARY ROSE
A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

1929
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
J. M. Barrie
James Matthew Barrie was born on 9the May 1860 in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland.
He was the ninth of ten children (two of whom died before his birth), born to Calvinist parents, David Barrie and Margaret Ogilvy. Barrie was sent to Glasgow Academy at the age of 8, where he was looked after by two of his older siblings, Alexander and Mary, who taught there. He went on to study at the Forfar Academy, and then at Dumfries Academy. He became an avid reader of penny dreadfuls and works by authors such as Robert Michael Ballantyne and James Fenimore Cooper. This love of fiction led Barrie, and his friends at Dumfries, to form a drama club in which he produced his first play, Bandelero the Bandit .
Barrie s desire to follow a career was not approved of by his parents, who wished him to go into a profession such as the ministry. However, they arrived at a compromise when he agreed to attend University, but would study literature. He received his M.A. From Edinburgh University in 1882.
After a brief spell as a staff journalist at the Nottingham Journal, Barrie returned to Kirriemuir and began writing stories based on the tales that his mother had told him about the town. He submitted these to the newspaper St. James s Gazette in London who liked his work. He ended up writing a series of them, which served as the basis for his first novels: Auld Licht Idylls (1888), A Window in Thrums (1890), and The Little Minister (1891).
Alongside his novels, Barrie began to produce many works for the theatre. His first venture into the medium was a biography of Richard Savage which he co-wrote with H.B. Marriott. This was only performed once and was critically panned. However, his next theatrical work Ibsen s Ghost (or Toole Up-to-Date ) (1891), a parody of Henrik Ibsen s dramas Hedda Gabler and Ghosts , was much more favourably received. It was during his third play that he met his future wife, the young actress, Mary Ansell. The pair were married on 9 th July 1894. Unfortunately, Mary had an affair which Barrie learned of in 1909 and the couple were divorced. They had no children together.
Barrie was very well connected in literary circles. One testament to this, was his role in founding an amateur cricket team that included members such as: Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, and G. K. Chesterton.
Barrie s lasting legacy to the world was his creation of Peter Pan. This character first appeared in the The White Little Bird , serialised in the United States and then published in a single volume in the UK in 1902. The work that catapulted his character to become a household name was Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn t Grow Up . This was first performed as a play on 27 th December 1904, but in 1911 Barrie adapted it into the novel Peter and Wendy . Interestingly, the name Wendy was not in common use at the time, but his work popularised it. The name was actually inspired by the daughter of friend and poet William Ernest Henley, who called Barrie Friendy , but could not pronounce her R s very well and so it came out as Fwendy . Upon his death, Barrie left the copyright to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
Barrie died on 19 th June 1937, of pneumonia. He is buried next to his parents and two of his siblings at Kirriemuir.
Contents
Act I
Act I
Act II
Act II
Act III
Act III
ACT I
ACT I
The scene is a room in a small Sussex manor house that has long been for sale. It is such a silent room that whoever speaks first here is a bold one, unless indeed he merely mutters to himself, which they perhaps allow. All of this room s past which can be taken away has gone. Such light as there is comes from the only window, which is at the back and is incompletely shrouded in sacking. For a moment this is a mellow light, and if a photograph could be taken quickly we might find a disturbing smile on the room s face, perhaps like the Monna Lisa s, which came, surely, of her knowing what only the dead should know. There are two doors, one leading downstairs; the other is at the back, very insignificant, though it is the centre of this disturbing history. The wall-paper, heavy in the adherence of other papers of a still older date, has peeled and leans forward here and there in a grotesque bow, as men have hung in chains; one might predict that the next sound heard here will be in the distant future when another piece of paper loosens. Save for two packing-cases, the only furniture is a worn easy-chair doddering by the unlit fire, like some foolish old man. We might play with the disquieting fancy that this room, once warm with love, is still alive but is shrinking from observation, and that with our departure they cunningly set to again at the apparently never-ending search which goes on in some empty old houses .
Some one is heard clumping up the stair, and the caretaker enters. It is not she, however, who clumps; she has been here for several years, and has become sufficiently a part of the house to move noiselessly in it. The first thing we know about her is that she does not like to be in this room. She is an elderly woman of gaunt frame and with a singular control over herself. There may be some one, somewhere, who can make her laugh still, one never knows, but the effort would hurt her face. Even the war, lately ended, meant very little to her. She has shown a number of possible purchasers over the house, just as she is showing one over it now, with the true caretaker s indifference whether you buy or not. The few duties imposed on her here she performs conscientiously, but her greatest capacity is for sitting still in the dark. Her work over, her mind a blank, she sits thus rather than pay for a candle. One knows a little more about life when he knows the Mrs. Oterys, but she herself is unaware that she is peculiar, and probably thinks that in some such way do people in general pass the hour before bedtime. Nevertheless, though saving of her candle in other empty houses, she always lights it on the approach of evening in this one .
The man who has clumped up the stairs in her wake is a young Australian soldier, a private, such as in those days you met by the dozen in any London street, slouching along it forlornly if alone, with sudden stoppages to pass the time (in which you ran against him), or in affable converse with a young lady. In his voice is the Australian tang that became such a friendly sound to us. He is a rough fellow, sinewy, with the clear eye of the man with the axe whose chief life-struggle till the war came was to fell trees and see to it that they did not crash down on him. Mrs. Otery is showing him the house, which he has evidently known in other days, but though interested he is unsentimental and looks about him with a tolerant grin .
MRS. OTERY . This was the drawing-room.
HARRY . Not it, no, no, never. This wasn t the drawing-room, my cabbage; at least not in my time.
MRS. OTERY ( indifferently ). I only came here about three years ago and I never saw the house furnished, but I was told to say this was the drawing-room. ( With a flicker of spirit ) And I would thank you not to call me your cabbage.
HARRY ( whom this kind of retort helps to put at his ease ). No offence. It s a French expression, and many a happy moment have I given to the mademoiselles by calling them cabbages. But the drawing-room! I was a little shaver when I was here last, but I mind we called the drawing-room the Big Room; it wasn t a little box like this.
MRS. OTERY . This is the biggest room in the house. ( She quotes drearily from some advertisement which is probably hanging in rags on the gate .) Specially charming is the drawing-room with its superb view of the Downs. This room is upstairs and is approached by-
HARRY . By a stair, containing some romantic rat-holes. Snakes, whether it s the room or not, it strikes cold; there is something shiver-some about it.
( For the first time she gives him a sharp glance .)
I ve shivered in many a shanty in Australy, and thought of the big room at home and the warmth of it. The warmth! And now this is the best it can do for the prodigal when he returns to it expecting to see that calf done to a turn. We live and learn, missis.
MRS. OTERY . We live, at any rate.
HARRY . Well said, my cabbage.
MRS. OTERY . Thank you, my rhododendron.
HARRY ( cheered ). I like your spirit. You and me would get on great if I had time to devote to your amusement. But, see here, I can make sure whether this was the drawing-room. If it was, there is an apple-tree outside there, with one of its branches scraping on the window. I ought to know, for it was out at the window down that apple-tree to the ground that I slided one dark night when I was a twelve-year-old, ran away from home, the naughty blue-eyed angel that I was, and set off to make my fortune on the blasted ocean. The fortune, my-my lady friend-has still got the start of me, but the apple-tree should be there to welcome her darling boy.
( He pulls down the sacking, which lets a little more light into the room. We see that the window, which reaches to the floor, opens outwards. There were probably long ago steps from it down into the garden, but they are gone now, and gone too is the apple-tree .)
I ve won! No tree: no drawing-room.
MRS. OTERY . I have heard tell there was once a tree there; an