Play about Peter Davies

[StacySobieski]

Hi Andrew. I'm currently working on my master's thesis project at the Birmingham School of Acting and was planning to write a play about Peter's life from the publication of Peter Pan until his death. But first, of course, I wanted to make sure that such a piece hasn't already been written. My research has turned up no such similar work, but I wanted to double-check and figured that you would be the man to ask about such a thing.

Kind Regards,
Stacy Sobieski

[andrew]

I think it's a brilliant idea, and I'm pretty certain no one has done it (or is doing it, as I think they would probably have tried to get in touc with me). If I can be of any help, let me know - although right at this moment I'm oscillanting between writing 3 very different scripts, 2 of which have to be finished by Christmas!

[Hannah High]

AWESOME...always hoping to hear more Peter's story. Especially sense beholding his war letters. All the best to you, Stacy! I'm sure it will be marvelous!!!

[StacySobieski]

Thanks very much for your response. I would greatly appreciate your help and input as the project progresses. I really hope that I'll be able to do Peter justice as I believe his story to be both a fascinating and important one.

This project actually brings to mind a strange experience that I once had which has always tugged at the back of my mind. Perhaps there's nothing to it, but I still think it's worth sharing...

I was in Kensington Gardens about five years ago, sitting on a bench by the Peter Pan statue, when an elderly Indian man approached me and asked the time. He then asked if I would mind sharing the bench with him and we struck up a conversation. He was obviously a very spiritual person and as we spoke further he told me that he believed we had known each other in a past life. Though many people would have immediately written him off as being a bit crazy, I felt quite at ease with him (and let's be honest, I was intrigued by such an occurrence) so we continued our conversation. He then went on to tell me all about my life thus far (quite specific details as well, and all spot on). He even mentioned that my sister had majored in education and minored in math while at university (like I said, quite specific details!). He also mentioned a couple things about my future, one of them being that I should try my hand at writing. He was quite adamant about that, really stressing the need for me to write in the future. He then requested that I read him a passage from the book I was holding, which just so happened to be Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. The passage which I randomly turned to was the one about all the different people you meet in the gardens. After that we went our separate ways and I never saw him again. And although a lot of people would probably just dismiss such an occurrence, I've never been able to fully shake it from my mind...

[TheWendybird]

Thanks very much for your response. I would greatly appreciate your help and input as the project progresses. I really hope that I'll be able to do Peter justice as I believe his story to be both a fascinating and important one.

This project actually brings to mind a strange experience that I once had which has always tugged at the back of my mind. Perhaps there's nothing to it, but I still think it's worth sharing...

I was in Kensington Gardens about five years ago, sitting on a bench by the Peter Pan statue, when an elderly Indian man approached me and asked the time. He then asked if I would mind sharing the bench with him and we struck up a conversation. He was obviously a very spiritual person and as we spoke further he told me that he believed we had known each other in a past life. Though many people would have immediately written him off as being a bit crazy, I felt quite at ease with him (and let's be honest, I was intrigued by such an occurrence) so we continued our conversation. He then went on to tell me all about my life thus far (quite specific details as well, and all spot on). He even mentioned that my sister had majored in education and minored in math while at university (like I said, quite specific details!). He also mentioned a couple things about my future, one of them being that I should try my hand at writing. He was quite adamant about that, really stressing the need for me to write in the future. He then requested that I read him a passage from the book I was holding, which just so happened to be Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. The passage which I randomly turned to was the one about all the different people you meet in the gardens. After that we went our separate ways and I never saw him again. And although a lot of people would probably just dismiss such an occurrence, I've never been able to fully shake it from my mind...

Amazing story there...I don't write off such experiences at all. Your heart and gut will know the difference most of the time IMO. Go for it! People come into our lives even for a short time for a purpose

[andrew]

An enviable experience... and one that's not really a question of belief, but a matter of scientific fact. Let anyone who doubts it check out quantum theory, specifically, quantum entanglement in space and time, aka non-locality. I can't quite agree that everyone comes into our lives for a purpose, except in the very general sense of causality... but here I digress... to be continued under "General topic" as it has nothing to do with Peter Davies (or does it?)
 

[maxwellt]

Hi Andrew! Hi Stacey!

Lovely to read your posts. Ironically, I am just visiting the site and the forum for the first time today, as I've recently been commissoned to write a play 'inspired' by the meeting of Peter Davies and Alice Liddell in 1932 for production at two regional theatres in the United States in 2011.

Though I think where my project will differ from yours, Stacey is that I believe what I'm to write won't be a pure biography of Mr. Davies - but will rather focus on the complex themes of identity in the face of maturation as experienced by Alice and Peter in the face of being the child muses for such complicated men as Lewis Caroll and J.M. Barrie.

The similarities of the relationships between the Carroll/Lidell sisters and Barrie/Davies boys is fascinating and eerily similar. Both stories surrounded by a certain idealism of youth, a healthy amount of loss and estrangement, unclear motives, dutiful obligation, family regret and of course love.

Its going to be a fun project to work on - and I'm really grateful to have found this site, Andrew to help foster research and ideas. And lovely to read, Stacey that another artist is also working on a creative piece about Davies. There is room for a 100 plays on Barrie and the remarkable story of the people who surrounded him!

[andrew]

Good luck with your project, Michael... but just remember that where Dodgson's child friendships faded "where the river meets the sea", Barrie's intensified...

[maxwellt]

A good thing to remember Andrew. Also interesting to note that Barrie, in 1932 was still alive. Davies was only 34, recently married and perhaps just on the cusp of dealing with the emotional tidlewave that would begin the road towards his eventual suicide.

Its an interesting juxtoposition to Alice, aged 80, who would seemingly be past any of the issues of her relationship with Carrol, and yet faced with the sensationalist Freudien ideas of the 1930s that began to examine these Victorian/Edwardian child/author celebrations as a sort of latent subconcious pedophilia.

I'm intrigued by this idea of these children now adults, faced with these immortal fictional identites gifted to them before they were really old enough to aquire identities of their own. To what degree were they influenced by their fictional selves and to what degree did they resent or feel obligated to honor this rare gift given, no doubt with love, by two eccentric men who society later dictated had quesstionable motives.

[StacySobieski]

That sounds like a phenomenal project, Michael. Best of luck with it! I hope you'll keep us updated on it's progress.

[andrew]

I seem to remember Peter mentioning in the Morgue that he'd been at some reception or other with Vivian Burnett (son of Frances Hodgson and the alleged original Little Lord Fauntleroy) and Christopher Milne (son of A A, and model for Christopher Robin), both of whom loathed their unsought fame every bit as much as poor Peter....

[JAQ]

I few months ago I ran across a mention of the Peter-and-Alice meeting in '32, and was immediately struck by the notion of what Alice (an old woman) and Peter (a middle-aged man) might have said to each other.  From there I wondered what Christopher Robin (a boy at the time and still facing the "saying his prayers" taunts) might have added to the conversation.  I've started drafting some dialog, with a view toward producing a short comics piece out of it... probably titled The Never Wonder Wood.  Now you say that Peter and Christopher actually did meet (presumably when both were older)?  Of course, lacking a time machine and a recording device, that does me no further good in figuring out the dialog, but it does provide a little more justification for imagining the scenario.

[CoriSCapnSkip]

I seem to remember Peter mentioning in the Morgue that he'd been at some reception or other with Vivian Burnett (son of Frances Hodgson and the alleged original Little Lord Fauntleroy) and Christopher Milne (son of A A, and model for Christopher Robin), both of whom loathed their unsought fame every bit as much as poor Peter....

Sounds fascinating, but they had it easy compared to some kids nowadays whose parents subject them to being reality TV show subjects.  At least in the case of child actors they were playing someone else.

[maxwellt]

Peter would actually have only been 34 at the time of his first meeting with 80 year old Alice in 1932. So they were at very different places in their lives, which makes the meeting all the more interesting.