Mary Rose (play)
Mary Rose is a play by J.M. Barrie, who is best known for Peter Pan. It first played in London in April 1920, with incidental music specially composed by Norman O'Neill.[1]
It tells the fictional story of a girl who vanishes twice.[1] As a child, Mary Rose's father takes her to a remote Scottish island. While she is briefly out of her father's sight, Mary Rose vanishes. The entire island is searched exhaustively. Twenty-one days later, Mary Rose reappears as mysteriously as she disappeared ... but she shows no effects of having been gone for three weeks, and she has no knowledge of any gap or missing time.
Years later, as a young wife and mother, the adult Mary Rose persuades her husband to take her to the same island. Again she vanishes: this time for a period of decades. When she is found again, she is not a single day older and has no awareness of the passage of time. In the interim, her son has grown to adulthood and is now physically older than his mother.
Barrie, who normally wrote with his right hand, wrote Mary Rose with his left hand due to a "writer's cramp".[2] Alfred Hitchcock saw the play in its original production, and wanted to film it, even asking Jay Presson Allen to write a screenplay after she wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock's Marnie (1964). However, Hitchcock was under contract to Universal Pictures which felt the project was not commercial enough.
Productions
Mary Rose first opened in London at the Haymarket Theatre, running from April 22, 1920 to February 26, 1921, with Fay Compton as Mary Rose, a role which was written for her by Barrie.[3] It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1920-1921.
Mary Rose also opened on Broadway at the Empire Theatre, running from December 22, 1920 to April 1921. Direction was by Ben Iden Payne with Ruth Chatterton as Mary Rose.[4] A revival ran on Broadway at the ANTA Playhouse, running from March 4, 1951 to March 16, 1951. Direction was by John Stix, with Mary Rose played by Bethel Leslie.[5]
The play was produced Off-Broadway by the Vineyard Theater in 2007. The New York Times reviewer called the play an "elegantly plotted ghost story". The review noted "The play is in many ways a more mature and mournful reworking of themes Barrie explored in the tale of the boy who refused to grow up. Time is seen as a quiet despoiler of happiness and innocence, and the lure of another world unblemished by its passing has an irresistible seduction."[6]
The play was produced in London at Riverside Studios in 2012. The reviewer wrote that the play "...reveals a somewhat uncomfortable preoccupation with childhood innocence extending some of the themes of Pan; the child who cannot grow up, and meditation on death and loss."[7]
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Everybody's magazine, Volume 43, page 30, December 1920.
- ^ Seeing things at night, By Heywood Broun, page 127, 1921
- ^ [1] Yahoo Movies, accessed March 4, 2013
- ^ Mary Rose, 1920 Internet Broadway Database, accessed November 11, 2012
- ^ Mary Rose, 1951 Internet Broadway Database, accessed November 11, 2012
- ^ Isherwood, Charles. "Theater Review. 'Mary Rose'" The New York Times, February 21, 2007
- ^ "Review: 'Mary Rose', Riverside Studios" fourthwallmagazine.co.uk, April 4, 2012