Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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IMPRESSIONS OF BARRIE ' S PLAYS The stage is the best medium of interpreting the ideas of the author. It reaches a larger audience and does so in a more im- pressive way then any other means. As a rule comedy is much more appreciated than more serious drama, but comedy must be tempered with something worth while to make it at all lasting. On the other hand, drama without humour to lighten it is un- balanced. It takes a master playwright to combine the two so that his comedies have an underlying meaning, and his dramas are full of that whimsical humour which makes Barrie so famous. Barrie has an eye for the ridiculous and sees the absurd in every situation. He cannot leave a solemn state of affairs alone, but slips in a little comedy to remind us of the brighter side of life. Apart from his sense of humour however Barrie has a great faculty for stirring one ' s imagination. He has a very vivid imagin- ation himself, which only needs his ability as a playwright to give 16

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3n fl emortam I THE LATE SIR WILLIAM PETERSON, M.A., LL.D., K.C.M.G. BY Rev. George Duncan, M.A., D.D., President This year brings another loss to Trafalgar in the death of one of its distinguished ex-presidents, Sir William Peterson. As principal of McGill University, Sir William was for twenty-four years a governor of Trafalgar, and after the retirement of the Rev. Dr. Barclay became its president. In the words of the Rev. Principal Fraser at the memorial service in the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul: Principal Peterson was primarily a scholar and adminis- trator. He magnified the office of the teacher, and deplored the apathy of the public towards those entrusted with the training of the future manhood and womanhood of the nation. He never ceased to protest against the narrow idea that education consists mainly in the acquiring of knowledge and is to be measured by success in examinations: and he constantly held up to teachers of youth the need of caring for such things as good manners, courtesy, consideration for others, respect for seniors, friendly politeness to all. Character to Sir William was the end of all education. Those who know of his work at Trafalgar, remember his intimate and kindly interest in the members of the teaching staff, and his sympathetic personal management of the scholars in their various studies. His acquaintance in detail with the curriculum and life of the school, and the high ideal of education which he upheld before all, contributed greatly to the success and prestige of Trafalgar. Its affiliation to McGill he strove to make a real and vital thing. One can never forget his enthusiastic support of music and art in their elevating and enriching influence upon the young women of tf)-day. Lonely with a scholar ' s shyness. Principal Peterson was never more in his atmosphere than in touch with the school life of Tra- falgar. Loyal to all that makes for true education and true citizen- ship, his loyalty must inspire all who share his deep attachment to Trafalgar, where his scholarship, administration and personality must j)ro ' e an abiding influence. 15

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it reality. Although his plays are very fanciful, they are yet so human in their characters that the audience falls into a state of easy belief and interest at once, and is then whisked off into a series of adventures drawn purely from the imagination. In spite of this obvious fact, one feels that it is perfectly natural because Barrie makes use of the most ordinary, accustomed emotions. By these means, for instance, he takes us ofif to the Never Never Land with Peter Pan and Wendy, John and Michael. The latter, who is just four years old and has only recently learned to fly, keeps falling asleep and dropping down through space to the sea — and Peter teases Wendy by keeping her in suspense until the last min- ute, when he swoops down and catches Michael just as his toes are getting wet, and wakens him. Then in the Never Never Land they have the most amazing adventures, which keep going around in circles; as for instance, Captain Hook is after Peter, the crocodile is after the Pirate (having eaten one of his hands he wants to follow it up with a whole meal), and the Indians are after the crocodile, and so on until it comes back to Peter again. So they live in a continuous round of thrills and excitement. Again in a Kiss for Cinderella we are carried off on the wings of Barrie ' s imagination, and this time also it is to a land of child ' s fancy. It is really the fancy of a little sick slavey of London who in her delirium thinks that she is Cinderella, and we are permitted to go with her to the ball, where they serve ices and cones which the Queen devours as greedily as any small boy. Here we see the ex- travagant splendour of colour and costume that a child would picture, and as one event follows another helter-skelter as in a dream, Cinderella rollicks feverishly through the gaieties to find, when she comes out of her delirium, that the Prince is hovering over her in the form of her heroic Policeman! As the curtain falls he presents her with a tiny glass slipper, and his heart at the same time. We feel that it has been a glimpse into dreamland. In the play, Dear Brutus , founded on Shakespeare ' s lines, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings, we see the characters go into the Mystic Wood which springs up over night,, and as all these people feel that at some time in their lives they took the wrong turning, there they live for a few hours the life they might have had. Although this play is of a more serious type than most written by Barrie, it has its comedy too. The young man who was in love with one woman and married to another, went into the Wood for a second chance and found that if, when he had come to this turning, he had mar- ried the girl he thought he loved, he would still be passionately making love to someone else, in fact, to his real wife! The most aristf)cratic woman in the party, who had never married, found in the Wood that she would have been married to the butler of her host. As everyone remembered his or her experiences in the Wood even after they came out of it and ba( k to real life, it led to many complica- 17