Peter Pan
Peter Pan, play by Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie, first produced in 1904. Although the title character first appeared in Barrie’s novel The Little White Bird (1902), he is best known as the protagonist of Peter Pan. The play, originally composed of three acts, was often revised, and the definitive version in five acts was published in 1928. The work added a new character to the mythology of the English-speaking world in the figure of Peter Pan, the eternal boy.
The play begins in the nursery of the Darling household in London, where Wendy, John, and Michael are going to bed when they are surprised by the arrival of Peter Pan and the fairy Tinker Bell. Peter has come to retrieve his shadow, which he had previously lost there. Peter reveals that he lives in the Never Land as captain of the Lost Boys, children who fell out of their baby carriages when their nurses were looking the other way. Invited by Peter to come to the Never Land to tell stories to the Lost Boys, Wendy and her brothers fly with Peter to an island populated by, in addition to the Lost Boys, villainous pirates led by Peter’s sworn enemy, Captain Hook; a crocodile that had been fed Hook’s arm by Peter Pan and wishes to eat the rest of him (but has also swallowed a clock, the ticking of which can be heard when the beast is near); and Tiger Lily, leader of a band of “redskin braves” who is also in competition with Wendy and the jealous Tinker Bell for Peter’s affection. Peter, however, shows little reciprocal interest. Magical adventures and pirate attacks take place. At length the Darling children decide to return home, taking the Lost Boys with them, but they are captured by the pirates. The boys are being made to walk the plank and Wendy is tied to the mast, but Peter Pan rescues them, and the boys kill all the pirates. At last the children return to London, leaving Peter Pan to his perpetual boyhood.
The play grew out of stories and fantasy games that Barrie played with the five sons of Sylvia and Arthur Llewellyn Davies. It was first produced on December 27, 1904, with Gerald du Maurier—Sylvia’s brother and the father of writer Daphne du Maurier—playing both Mr. Darling, the father of the children spirited away by Peter Pan, and Captain Hook and with Nina Boucicault in the role of Peter. It was a great success both in London and in New York City, where it opened in 1905 with the American actress Maude Adams portraying Peter. Barrie later expanded and adapted the play into the novel Peter and Wendy (1911).
The first film of the play (1924) starred Betty Bronson as Peter. Walt Disney produced an enduringly popular animated feature film (1953), in which the character of Peter was more charmingly impish than the anarchical and somewhat selfish Peter of Barrie’s play and book. An acclaimed Broadway musical version starring Mary Martin as Peter Pan and directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins won three Tony Awards and was frequently revived. The play was adapted for television in 1955 and again in 1960. The caricatured roles of Barrie’s Tiger Lily and her fellow “redskins” were not seen as being racially insensitive until fairly late in the 20th century, and films and stage and TV productions since that time have tried various approaches to presenting the story while eliminating its racist elements.