From "William Nicholson" (1943)

Full Work

From William Nicholson by Marguerite Steen (1943)

[Marguerite Steen was ten years old when Peter Pan opened in 1904. From 1935 she and Nicholson lived together until his death in 1949.]

Chapter Nine

Introduction to the Theatre

When J.M. Barrie wrote to William [Nicholson], suggesting he should design the costumes for Peter Pan, he (J.M.B.) was living at Leinster Corner; William found him in a preposterous setting of an ornate Edwardian drawing-room, sitting with his knees drawn up in excruciating discomfort on a short Empire settee with gilded ends. It was with obvious relief on both sides that they quitted this inappropriate décor for the little summerhouse in the garden, where he lived and did most of his writing, surrounded by his big dog – the original of Nana.

Nana had been taught an impressive trick which delighted Barrie as much as it mystified his victims. Whenever he had a call from one of his literary friends, Barrie skillfully led the conversation to one of the visitor's books, which presently Nana was told to fetch; whereon she walked solemnly to the bookshelves and returned with the volume in question in her mouth. The secret of the trick was, of course, that it had been planted beforehand; Nana had learned to fetch a book – any book – from a certain place on the shelves, and Barrie had seen to it that the book was there before the visitor's arrival.

Barrie's suggestion delighted William; it was his first opportunity of coming to grips with the theatre, which exerted over him the powerful fascination it must have for all imaginative and creative natures. He had already a good working knowledge of it, thanks to the many times he had watched [Sir Henry] Irving's rehearsals – to those whose vast apocrypha he could, if he chose, add richly. His prettiest Irving story concerns an occasion when [Teddy] Gordon Craig had to make an entrance. Teddy, always shortsighted, visibility reduced – for him – by the blaze of the battens, came nosing out of the wings with the hopeful, helpful expression of one who thinks he may evade notice. It was too much for Irving.

"No, no, no, NO, Teddy! Go back, go back, go back! You look as if you were coming out a urinal!"

William's approach to the theatre was – and is – highly romantic; the stage stripped for rehearsal, the yawning flies, the ponderous dimness of the scene-dock are invested, for him, with a magic which is populated with the bright ghosts of the past; but the romanticism does not blot out his critical capacity, as anyone who has accompanied him to a rehearsal must know. He has an instinctive understanding – not always present in those who work for the theatre – of the relationship between the actor and his setting; he views his own contribution not as an isolated and all-important element, but as part of the completed whole.

Alongside of the vein of fantasy, to which he was able to give free play in such productions as Peter Pan and Polly, runs the illuminating sanity and scrupulous respect for balance and justice which appear in his Still Life. His love of the drama and instinctive perception of its requirements make him a natural workman of the theatre, through which he weaves his little way, unperturbed by personal contacts, intent only on his own province, though conscious in every pore of that which concerns other people.

Perhaps this is the time to say that William, as member of a theatre audience, is an uncertain quantity; his reactions are quite unpredictable, and sometime sensational. On one occasion Barrie sent him a box and he took Mabel [his first wife] and the children – to what play he cannot remember – when he was so carried away by a speech of the leading lady's that the tears poured down his cheeks. Thoroughly ashamed of himself, he leaned with his elbows on the ledge of the box. Something, however, made him look down, when he saw the drummer of the orchestra, in a frenzy of rage, shaking his fist at him. William was crying on to the big drum.

Another equally disconcerting occasion rose out of a box at His Majesty's, sent by [Beerbohm] Tree to William and his family, who, that night, were going to a ball at Covent Garden, and were in fancy dress. About half-way through, William became so bored with the performance that he retired to the back of the box, lay down on the floor and went cozily to sleep. Tree, graciously coming to visit his guests during one of the waits, must have regarded with mixed feelings the prone figure over which he stumbled in entering the box. William does not seem to remember how he extricated himself from this situation, but, knowing him, it seems likely that he emerged with aplomb and even grace.

These two stories must not be taken to imply that William was a Barrie addict and allergic to Tree as an actor. On the contrary, Barrie's whimsy made every tooth in his head jump, and apart from The Admirable Crichton, he never willingly went to a Barrie play; while for some of Tree's work he had a considerable admiration.

But William in the theatre is always a little unnerving; if we go to the play, or are invited to join a theatre party, he always makes a provision that, if bored, he may come out – hardly an encouraging note on which to accept an invitation. …

To return to Barrie and Peter Pan – the collaboration went well from the beginning. They attended rehearsals together, and often lunched at a little "local" nearly opposite the Duke of York's Theatre, where the rehearsals took place. One morning William asked Barrie why he always ordered Brussels sprouts, as he never ate them. After a short pause, Barrie explained, shyly and confidentially, "Because it's such a nice thing to say – Brussels sprouts!"

It was Sidney Pawling who suggested that William might paint Barrie between rehearsals. Barrie's reply was characteristic:

Leinster Corner,
Lancaster Gate, W.
February 13. [1904]

My dear Pawling,
On the one hand I have long ceased to be on speaking terms with my face, so why have it painted? On the other hand I do have such an admiration for Nicholson's work that is he really wants to paint me, and would do it here, so be it. There is a sort of a studio, tell him, but with the north light painted out, and I'm always in it in the mornings, ten to one."
Yours sincerely,
J. M. Barrie.

William started a small head of Barrie, looking rather like a sparrow after a dust-bath; when Barrie's sister saw it, she burst into tears. It was placed very low on the canvas, with a lot of space up above. Max [Beerbohm], to whom Barrie and all his works were anathema*, and whose pencil, as well as his pen, was like a scorpion, made a caricature of it, reducing Barrie's head to the size of a pea, at the foot of a waste of background. For all his reputed sensitiveness to ridicule, Barrie stood up to it manfully, though there is a certain lack of enthusiasm in his letter to William about the portrait.

My Dear Nicholson,
I think it is first rate now and by all means exhibit it. I still dislike the blue cheek and all who have seen it do too-- looks dirty as if I hadn't shaved to our thinking, but follow your own feeling. There is a general opinion also that the arm is still short. These are the only criticisms, all else is eulogy.
Yours Sincerely,
J. M. Barrie

During rehearsals a little, unknown, American actress distinguished herself in the Pillow Dance; this was the future, and perhaps the most famous of all the Peter Pans – Pauline Chase, who, when the play was revived, stepped into Nina Boucicault's part* of "the boy who never grew up." William designed a special dress for the Pillow Dance girl, who, at the end of a long and tiring dress rehearsal, came down to the floats and called out to Barrie: "Say, Mr. Barrie, I can't go on like this. My hair's too long and my boots are too big." Barrie (in the stalls) thought for a moment, put his little arm behind his head and said, "Well my dear, put your hair in your boots."

One of the points on which Barrie was most insistent was that the pirates should be real pirates, not Gilbert-and-Sullivan travesties. William carried out his wishes with zest. He found an enormous buck n***er for one of the pirates, put him into a great, tattered, green silk dressing gown, and gave him a club as big as his head – with the result that some of the children in the audience were scared into hysterics on the first night, and the n***er was withdrawn. The pirates, as the play continued on its way down the ages, gradually became more and more Gilbert-and Sullivan, and finally ended up as Sullivan-and-water.

For [Gerald] du Maurier, William designed a superb wig of purple chenille, arranged to look like snakes; it was darker than the darkest thing imaginable, and was the focusing point of the scene. Du Maurier refused to wear it because his wife said it was unbecoming, and went on looking like a cross between Charles II and a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl: in spite of which he gave an exquisite performance, elegant and stylisé to the last degree, and bearing as little relation to latter-day performances as cheese to chalk.

All William's designs for the costumes were stolen from the theatre, except one or two which William gave to du Maurier. "Do you feel drawn yourself to do a poster of the Esquimaux boys looking thro' their legs at wolves?" wrote Barrie – but apparently William was not "drawn," and the poster was not done.

A high spot of the first night was the final scene, in which the lost little boys' mothers were supposed to turn up and claim their missing offspring. Although this scored a success with the more naïve section of the audience, the sophisticates (according to William) "laughed like hell" as the management had put on a crowd of supers and it looked more like the Empire [Theatre] Promenade, prior to the activities of Mrs. Ormiston Chant*, than a family reunion. The scene was very soon removed, when the meaning of the sniggers from the stalls had penetrated to the management.

A few years later, William went to see the play again, and found his costume designs unrecognizable; he therefore wrote to Barrie, asking to have his name removed from the programme.

===

[* AB: Not strictly speaking true. Tree reviewed The Admirable Crichton as "quite the best thing that has happened, in my time, to the British stage," while later he applauded What Every Woman Knows, writing that "the characters are creatures of real flesh and blood, winged by Mr Barrie's whim - an immense relief from the sawdust-stuffed figures that the average playwright dresses up.”

* Pauline Chase actually took over from Cissie Loftus, who had played Peter in the 1st 1905/06 revival.

* Mrs. Ormiston Chant was a well-known advocate of temperance, women's rights and other moral causes.]

===

With many thanks to Robert Foreman for supplying this extract.

***

From William Nicholson by Marguerite Steen (1943)

[Marguerite Steen was ten years old when Peter Pan opened in 1904. From 1935 she and Nicholson lived together until his death in 1949.]

Chapter Nine

Introduction to the Theatre

When J.M. Barrie wrote to William [Nicholson], suggesting he should design the costumes for Peter Pan, he (J.M.B.) was living at Leinster Corner; William found him in a preposterous setting of an ornate Edwardian drawing-room, sitting with his knees drawn up in excruciating discomfort on a short Empire settee with gilded ends. It was with obvious relief on both sides that they quitted this inappropriate décor for the little summerhouse in the garden, where he lived and did most of his writing, surrounded by his big dog – the original of Nana.

Nana had been taught an impressive trick which delighted Barrie as much as it mystified his victims. Whenever he had a call from one of his literary friends, Barrie skillfully led the conversation to one of the visitor's books, which presently Nana was told to fetch; whereon she walked solemnly to the bookshelves and returned with the volume in question in her mouth. The secret of the trick was, of course, that it had been planted beforehand; Nana had learned to fetch a book – any book – from a certain place on the shelves, and Barrie had seen to it that the book was there before the visitor's arrival.

Barrie's suggestion delighted William; it was his first opportunity of coming to grips with the theatre, which exerted over him the powerful fascination it must have for all imaginative and creative natures. He had already a good working knowledge of it, thanks to the many times he had watched [Sir Henry] Irving's rehearsals – to those whose vast apocrypha he could, if he chose, add richly. His prettiest Irving story concerns an occasion when [Teddy] Gordon Craig had to make an entrance. Teddy, always shortsighted, visibility reduced – for him – by the blaze of the battens, came nosing out of the wings with the hopeful, helpful expression of one who thinks he may evade notice. It was too much for Irving.

"No, no, no, NO, Teddy! Go back, go back, go back! You look as if you were coming out a urinal!"

William's approach to the theatre was – and is – highly romantic; the stage stripped for rehearsal, the yawning flies, the ponderous dimness of the scene-dock are invested, for him, with a magic which is populated with the bright ghosts of the past; but the romanticism does not blot out his critical capacity, as anyone who has accompanied him to a rehearsal must know. He has an instinctive understanding – not always present in those who work for the theatre – of the relationship between the actor and his setting; he views his own contribution not as an isolated and all-important element, but as part of the completed whole.

Alongside of the vein of fantasy, to which he was able to give free play in such productions as Peter Pan and Polly, runs the illuminating sanity and scrupulous respect for balance and justice which appear in his Still Life. His love of the drama and instinctive perception of its requirements make him a natural workman of the theatre, through which he weaves his little way, unperturbed by personal contacts, intent only on his own province, though conscious in every pore of that which concerns other people.

Perhaps this is the time to say that William, as member of a theatre audience, is an uncertain quantity; his reactions are quite unpredictable, and sometime sensational. On one occasion Barrie sent him a box and he took Mabel [his first wife] and the children – to what play he cannot remember – when he was so carried away by a speech of the leading lady's that the tears poured down his cheeks. Thoroughly ashamed of himself, he leaned with his elbows on the ledge of the box. Something, however, made him look down, when he saw the drummer of the orchestra, in a frenzy of rage, shaking his fist at him. William was crying on to the big drum.

Another equally disconcerting occasion rose out of a box at His Majesty's, sent by [Beerbohm] Tree to William and his family, who, that night, were going to a ball at Covent Garden, and were in fancy dress. About half-way through, William became so bored with the performance that he retired to the back of the box, lay down on the floor and went cozily to sleep. Tree, graciously coming to visit his guests during one of the waits, must have regarded with mixed feelings the prone figure over which he stumbled in entering the box. William does not seem to remember how he extricated himself from this situation, but, knowing him, it seems likely that he emerged with aplomb and even grace.

These two stories must not be taken to imply that William was a Barrie addict and allergic to Tree as an actor. On the contrary, Barrie's whimsy made every tooth in his head jump, and apart from The Admirable Crichton, he never willingly went to a Barrie play; while for some of Tree's work he had a considerable admiration.

But William in the theatre is always a little unnerving; if we go to the play, or are invited to join a theatre party, he always makes a provision that, if bored, he may come out – hardly an encouraging note on which to accept an invitation. …

To return to Barrie and Peter Pan – the collaboration went well from the beginning. They attended rehearsals together, and often lunched at a little "local" nearly opposite the Duke of York's Theatre, where the rehearsals took place. One morning William asked Barrie why he always ordered Brussels sprouts, as he never ate them. After a short pause, Barrie explained, shyly and confidentially, "Because it's such a nice thing to say – Brussels sprouts!"

It was Sidney Pawling who suggested that William might paint Barrie between rehearsals. Barrie's reply was characteristic:

Leinster Corner,
Lancaster Gate, W.
February 13. [1904]

My dear Pawling,
On the one hand I have long ceased to be on speaking terms with my face, so why have it painted? On the other hand I do have such an admiration for Nicholson's work that is he really wants to paint me, and would do it here, so be it. There is a sort of a studio, tell him, but with the north light painted out, and I'm always in it in the mornings, ten to one."
Yours sincerely,
J. M. Barrie.

William started a small head of Barrie, looking rather like a sparrow after a dust-bath; when Barrie's sister saw it, she burst into tears. It was placed very low on the canvas, with a lot of space up above. Max [Beerbohm], to whom Barrie and all his works were anathema*, and whose pencil, as well as his pen, was like a scorpion, made a caricature of it, reducing Barrie's head to the size of a pea, at the foot of a waste of background. For all his reputed sensitiveness to ridicule, Barrie stood up to it manfully, though there is a certain lack of enthusiasm in his letter to William about the portrait.

My Dear Nicholson,
I think it is first rate now and by all means exhibit it. I still dislike the blue cheek and all who have seen it do too-- looks dirty as if I hadn't shaved to our thinking, but follow your own feeling. There is a general opinion also that the arm is still short. These are the only criticisms, all else is eulogy.
Yours Sincerely,
J. M. Barrie

During rehearsals a little, unknown, American actress distinguished herself in the Pillow Dance; this was the future, and perhaps the most famous of all the Peter Pans – Pauline Chase, who, when the play was revived, stepped into Nina Boucicault's part* of "the boy who never grew up." William designed a special dress for the Pillow Dance girl, who, at the end of a long and tiring dress rehearsal, came down to the floats and called out to Barrie: "Say, Mr. Barrie, I can't go on like this. My hair's too long and my boots are too big." Barrie (in the stalls) thought for a moment, put his little arm behind his head and said, "Well my dear, put your hair in your boots."

One of the points on which Barrie was most insistent was that the pirates should be real pirates, not Gilbert-and-Sullivan travesties. William carried out his wishes with zest. He found an enormous buck n***er for one of the pirates, put him into a great, tattered, green silk dressing gown, and gave him a club as big as his head – with the result that some of the children in the audience were scared into hysterics on the first night, and the n***er was withdrawn. The pirates, as the play continued on its way down the ages, gradually became more and more Gilbert-and Sullivan, and finally ended up as Sullivan-and-water.

For [Gerald] du Maurier, William designed a superb wig of purple chenille, arranged to look like snakes; it was darker than the darkest thing imaginable, and was the focusing point of the scene. Du Maurier refused to wear it because his wife said it was unbecoming, and went on looking like a cross between Charles II and a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl: in spite of which he gave an exquisite performance, elegant and stylisé to the last degree, and bearing as little relation to latter-day performances as cheese to chalk.

All William's designs for the costumes were stolen from the theatre, except one or two which William gave to du Maurier. "Do you feel drawn yourself to do a poster of the Esquimaux boys looking thro' their legs at wolves?" wrote Barrie – but apparently William was not "drawn," and the poster was not done.

A high spot of the first night was the final scene, in which the lost little boys' mothers were supposed to turn up and claim their missing offspring. Although this scored a success with the more naïve section of the audience, the sophisticates (according to William) "laughed like hell" as the management had put on a crowd of supers and it looked more like the Empire [Theatre] Promenade, prior to the activities of Mrs. Ormiston Chant*, than a family reunion. The scene was very soon removed, when the meaning of the sniggers from the stalls had penetrated to the management.

A few years later, William went to see the play again, and found his costume designs unrecognizable; he therefore wrote to Barrie, asking to have his name removed from the programme.

===

[* AB: Not strictly speaking true. Tree reviewed The Admirable Crichton as "quite the best thing that has happened, in my time, to the British stage," while later he applauded What Every Woman Knows, writing that "the characters are creatures of real flesh and blood, winged by Mr Barrie's whim - an immense relief from the sawdust-stuffed figures that the average playwright dresses up.”

* Pauline Chase actually took over from Cissie Loftus, who had played Peter in the 1st 1905/06 revival.

* Mrs. Ormiston Chant was a well-known advocate of temperance, women's rights and other moral causes.]

===

With many thanks to Robert Foreman for supplying this extract.

***