L MY FIRST MUSICAL COMEDY AND CHILDREN'S PLAY. AST month I had my first experience of the musical comedy, which I have hitherto avoided. I went to see, or hear, "Veronique" at the Apollo Theatre. I should not break my heart if my first musical comedy should prove my last. But I also had another experience of a much pleasanter kind. I went to see "Peter Pan." And I heartily wish that every child and every grown-up who has still preserved the heart of a child, or any part thereof, could have an opportunity of seeing that charming spectacle. Before describing my impressions of either, I must make a passing note of the reviving popularity of Shakespeare-and of Shaw. "John Bull's Other Island" has been so popular at the Court Theatre last month in the afternoons, that an Irish peer told me he had in vain attempted to book a seat." House full" in the afternoon has encouraged the experiment of a series of evening performances. In time we may see this delightful play making the tour of the provinces. It is not the only play of Mr. Shaw's that has been performed last month. We have had the sequel to "Candida" at the Court, and "The Philanderer" in the City. Shaw stock is looking up. But this is as nothing to the run on Shakespeare. Last month three of Shakespeare's plays were performed every night at three of the most popular theatres. "Much Ado About Nothing" has succeeded "The Tempest" at His Majesty's Theatre. "The Taming of the Shrew" still attracts crowds to the Adelphi; and Mr. Lewis Waller has revived "Henry V." at the Imperial. Besides these runs, the heroic and indefatigable Benson has played Shakespeare twice a day at the Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, where the London public have had an opportunity of seeing "Macbeth," "King Lear," "Richard II.," and "The Comedy of Errors." It is a long time since the sovereignty supreme of the King by right divine. of the drama was simultaneously acclaimed on many London stages. May this be an augury of better things to come! (10.)—“PETER PAN" AT THE DUKE OF YORK'S. SO Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up, is a dainty, delightful little magician, who makes old boys grow young again at the Duke of York's Theatre, twice a day, six days a week. I saw it on its 98th performance. I hope to see it again on its 998th, for there is no reason why it should ever grow stale. It ought to share the eternal youth of its charming hero. Mr. J. M. Barrie deserves the thanks and the congratulations of all who love children and of all Imagine one of Hans Christian Andersen's charming Christmas stories, one of Captain Mayne Reid's hair-raising romances of scalp-raising Red Indians, and R. L. Stevenson's tales of bold buccaneers, all mixed up together, and the resulting amalgam served up in humorous burlesque fashion for the delight of the young folks, and you have "Peter Pan." Greybearded grandfather though I am, I felt as I looked at "Peter Pan" that I renewed my youth. It seemed as if I had never grown up. I was in the magic realm of the scalp-hunters, the enchanted wood of the gnomes, revelling in the daring devilry of the pirates, and clapping my hands with delight over the exploits of the darling, delightful, invincible Peter Pan. And I wondered as I left the theatre whether Mr. Barrie and Mr. Frohman had enough love for little children in their hearts to give some free performances of "Peter Pan" to the poor children of London town, to whom seats in the Duke of York's Theatre are as unattainable as a dukedom. The good old principle of tithes. might be invoked to justify such occasional free performances as a thank-offering for a great, a continuous and an increasing success. Instead of the ancient Hebrew offering of the sheaf of the first-fruits, which was brought to the Temple in thanksgiving for the harvest, it surely ought not to be an impossible thing to get the principle accepted by all theatrical managers and authors that whenever a piece has made its century one free performance should be given as a thankoffering a sheaf of first-fruits offered in thanksgiving to the poor of our people. And what play so admirably suited to initiate this law of thank-offering as "Peter Pan"? "Peter Pan" opens with an immediate initial success-a success achieved by an actor whose human identity is so completely merged in the dog (fem.) Nana, that it is a moot point with many youngsters whether Nana is not really a well-trained animal. Nana, a black-and-white Newfoundland, is the nurse of the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Darling. She puts them to bed, tucks them in, and hangs out their clothes to air by the fire. After an amusing scene with some medicine, the three children-the girl, little Wendy, and her two brothers-in their nighties and pyjamas, are sung to sleep by their mother, who is not only a darling in name but in nature. When the mother has gone and the night - lights are out, the window opens, and Peter Pan climbs into the room. Peter is a superb figure of a Cupid without his wings, who, nevertheless, and perhaps because he has no wings, flies much better than Ariel, as seen at His Majesty's "Tempest." A ruddy-faced, lithe-limbed, beautiful Cupid, not the chubby little Cupid of Thorwaldsen, but the divine boy of Grecian sculpture, a Cupid crossed with Apollo, a magical, mystical lad, with whom it is not surprising that everyone fell in love, from the fairy Tink-a-Tink to Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen. He wakes the little girl, and tells her he is the boy who did not want to grow up, and who, for that good reason, ran away from home, as soon as he was born, to the Never Never Never Land, where he has charge of all the boy babies who fall out of their perambulators. He never had a mother, does not know what a mother is. When the little maid proposes to give him a kiss her heart fails her, and she gives him a thimble as her kiss. Not to be outdone in generosity, he gives her a button as his kiss. Waxing bolder, Wendy kisses him, and explains that that is a thimble; and Peter Pan only knows of kissing as an exchange of thimbles. Peter astonishes Wendy by flying about the room, and she hears the bell of Tink-a-Tink, the fairy, whom Peter has inadvertently shut up in the drawer. Being liberated, Tink-a-Tink, a swift quivering white light, flies about the room. When the bell rings she talks, and Peter interprets her words to the wondering Wendy. At last she perches above the clock, and appears like a little Tanagra figure of light. And here I may make my only criticism. If Mr. Barrie were to go to any of Mr. Husk's séances he would hear fairy bells much better worthy the name than the muffin bell of Tink-a-Tink. And if he would consult any of the classics of the nursery he would discover that his white little statuette that perches above the clock may be anything in the world, but it is not a fairy. TinkTinka-Tink could so easily be made so fascinating and so real an entity that I was surprised at such a failure in a play that is otherwise so admirably staged. Peter Peter Pan, expounding the truth about fairies, explains that a fairy is born with every baby, but that, as a fairy dies whenever any boy or girl says I don't believe in fairies," the mortality in fairyland is high. But unless something is done to make Tink-a-Tink a little more life-like than this darting light and white illuminated little statuette, I am afraid "Peter Pan" will raise rather than reduce the death-rate among the little people. When Peter Pan tells Wendy that it is quite easy to fly she wakes her brothers, and the three kiddies make desperate and at first unsuccessful efforts to imitate Peter's flight backwards and forwards across the room. At last they master the secret, and one after another, the children fly out of the window and disappear. They are off to the Never Never Never Land, where little Wendy becomes the mother of the forlorn "mitherless bairns" who live in the care of Peter Pan, clad in furs, in a region haunted by fierce wolves with red eyes, by prowling Redskins and savage pirates. The interest of the play never stops. The wolves are banished by the simple and approved method of looking at them. through your legs. Wendy Moira Angela Darling, to quote her full name, comes flying overhead and is mistaken for a strange white bird. The children shoot at it, and Wendy falls apparently dead with an arrow in her heart. Peter Pan arrives, and, in fierce wrath, is about to execute judgment upon the murderer, when Wendy revives; the arrow has been turned aside by the button which Peter Pan had given her as a kiss. Grief being changed to rejoicing, Wendy is adopted as the mother of the brood, they build her a house, improvising its chimney pot by the summary process of knocking the crown out of a hat of that description. The scene shifts, and we are introduced to noble Redskins and ferocious pirates, in fierce feud with each other-a feud terminating unfortunately in the discomfiture of the Redskins after a desperate battle. Then we make the acquaintance of James Hook, the terrible pirate, whose right hand has been eaten off by a monstrous crocodile, which relished it so much it has spent all its time ever since tracking down the owner of the rest of the body. The pirate, who has replaced the missing hand by a double hook, is a holy terror to all his He fears neither God nor man, but he is in mortal dread of the gigantic saurian, which would have eaten him long ago but for the fact that it had swallowed a clock, the ticking of which in its inside always gives the pirate warning of its approach. At last, however, Peter Pan extricates the clock and the pirate meets his doom. men. This, however, is anticipating. Peter Pan, who does not understand what love is, inspires Wendy, Tink-a-Tink and Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen, with a hopeless passion. He can only interpret it by saying that they all want to be his mothers. Poor Tiger Lily courts him with unreserve, but he is faithful to Wendy. The pirates capture all the children, and the pirate chief pours poison into Peter Pan's medicine glass. Tink-a-Tink, the faithful fairy, drinks up the fatal draught to save Peter. As she is dying, Peter Pan rushes to the front, and with a genuine fervour of entreaty that brought tears to some eyes, declared that if every child in the audience would clap its hands as a sign that it really did believe in fairies, Tink-a-Tink would recover. Of course there is an 'immediate response. This profession of faith in the reality of fairies revives the dying Tink-a-Tink, and the clanging muffin bell testifies to her complete restoration to health. Before the children are captured by the pirates there is a delectable scene, charmingly true to life, where Wendy, the child-mother, tells stories to the |