Peter and Alice

JOHN LOGAN

OBERON BOOKS
LONDON

WWW.OBERONBOOKS.COM

Act One

NOTE
:

Many years ago I came across the following in
The Real Alice
, Anne Clark's biography of Alice Liddell Hargreaves, the model for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:

“On June 26 1932 Alice opened the Lewis Carroll exhibition at Bumpus, the London bookshop. Beside her was Peter Davies, the original Peter Pan
.”

I wondered what they said to each other.

CHARACTERS
in order of appearance:

PETER LLEWELYN DAVIES

ALICE LIDDELL HARGREAVES

LEWIS CARROLL (REV. CHARLES DODGSON)

JAMES BARRIE

PETER PAN

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

ARTHUR DAVIES

REGINALD (REGGIE) HARGREAVES

MICHAEL DAVIES

(Arthur Davies, Reginald Hargreaves and Michael Davies may be played by the same actor.)

SETTING
:

The backroom of the Bumpus bookshop.

No. 350, Oxford Street. London.

June 26, 1932.

And corners of memory that include Oxford, a riverbank, a street with illuminations, a darkroom, a country estate, a London flat, Neverland and Wonderland, variously from 1862 to 1921.

Quotes from the novels
Peter and Wendy
by J.M. Barrie and
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
and
Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll are in
italics…
These novels are in the public domain.

Peter and Alice
by John Logan was first performed in London on 9th March 2013 at the Noël Coward Theatre as part of the Michael Grandage Company Season of five plays.

Cast (in order of speaking)

Understudies

Dedicated to Michael Grandage

For his faith in this play and its author.

And for giving an actor the single best piece of direction I have ever heard.

The backroom of the Bumpus bookshop in London. June 26, 1932
.

Imposing shelves of books, files, bibliographic supplies, etc. There is a door into the bookshop
.

PETER
waits. He's in his 30s
.

He hears voices off. He prepares himself, clears his throat, and straightens his conservative suit. He's nervous
.

ALICE
enters
.

She's 80
.

PETER
: Mrs. Hargreaves… My name is Peter Davies. How do you do?

ALICE
: How do you do?

PETER
: We're to wait here. I'm told.

Beat
.

PETER
: It'll only be a few minutes, until everyone has gathered and then Charles will introduce me and I'll introduce you. You're to make some remarks and then–

ALICE
: I understand.

Beat
.

PETER
: This is a – pleasure, ma'am.

ALICE
: You were going to say “honor” but you thought it unduly reverential. It is challenging to know which note to strike with me. Do you honor him and the book through honoring me? But am I worthy of honor? Not her –
me
… Then how, indeed, do I feel about
her
? You've no way of knowing… Is it an “honor” or a “pleasure”…or something else altogether?

PETER
: I think, now, the latter.

She smiles slightly
.

He's emboldened to continue
.

PETER
: In any event, Mrs. Hargreaves, I've been looking forward to meeting you.

ALICE
: No, Mr. Davies, I daresay you've been looking forward to meeting
her
.

PETER
: It is to
you
I wish to speak.

ALICE
: Is this by way of an ambush?

PETER
: I asked Charles if I might have a few words with you.

She nods. Proceed
.

PETER
: I have an imprint, not inconsiderable, called Peter Davies Limited. We have a proper list and my chief duty as publisher is to cast my eye about for worthwhile subjects.

ALICE
: And your eye has fallen on me, as worthwhile. How very flattering.

PETER
: That's the curse of my trade. To a book man, every nook and cranny is a potential story.

ALICE
: Am I a nook or a cranny?

PETER
: I – Sorry?

ALICE
: Come to the point, Mr. Davies.

PETER
: When I got the invitation to come and meet you, I thought: there's a story, and worth the telling… Have you considered your memoirs?

ALICE
: Considered them as what?

PETER
: Something you might wish to write.

ALICE
: To be published and vended?

PETER
: Yes.

ALICE
: This is not the first time I've been approached.

PETER
: Perhaps never by someone with such a
personal
understanding of your unique position.

ALICE
: Have I a “position”?

PETER
: Come now, Mrs. Hargreaves, you would not be here today if you did not.

She grants the point
.

ALICE
: Memoirs – autobiographies – are the records of the deeds of a life. I have had no deeds worthy of reportage. Not of my own… Those around me perhaps.

PETER
: Isn't every life worth recording honestly?

ALICE
: Oh… You want
honesty
.

Beat
.

ALICE
: Aren't you the ambitious young man?

She strolls, considers the room
.

ALICE
: In your element, Mr. Davies.

PETER
: Sorry?

ALICE
: Amongst the books.

PETER
: For you as well.

ALICE
: I was not amongst the books, I was
in
a book. That's something different.

She runs her hand along some of the spines
.

ALICE
: From the outside they are one thing: ordered and symmetrical, all the same; like foot soldiers. From the inside they are altogether singular.

PETER
: Do you ever get tired of it?

ALICE
: What?

PETER
: Being Alice.

ALICE
: I'm loath to disillusion you, but people have forgotten me. Thus I fear for the commercial prospects of the House of Davies should you be so reckless as to publish my memoirs. Of course they remember
her
. But
me
? … Those days are like the dark ages now, aren't they? Before motor cars and chewing gum. Before airplanes and cinema and
the wireless. Lord, a time before the
wireless
, can you imagine the silence? You could hear the bees buzzing in the summer… Golden afternoons all gone away.

PETER
: With respect, Mrs. Hargreaves, people have not forgotten. Everything associated with the Centenary is taking the fancy of the nation, including the reception today.

ALICE
: Momentarily, yes… But before this there was, and after this there shall be, quietude. I like to hear the bees buzzing.

PETER
: But don't you think – ?

ALICE
:
(Firm.)
No, sir, I do not. In your quest for literary “truth” you must occasionally run across those stories you wish you hadn't told, for the simple reason that no one really wants to hear the truth when it runs contrary – “contrariwise” as he would say – to the comfortable assumptions that people hold so dear. That's the burden of truth, isn't it?

PETER
: Yes, but–

ALICE
: Here's a burden: the only reason anyone remembers me now as Alice in Wonderland is that I decided to sell my hand-written manuscript of the book. It was this act that brought me back into the public eye… But do you know
why
I sold the manuscript? Because I needed the money.
To heat my house, Mr. Davies
… Now, is that the Alice people want to know? Or is it just possible they would rather remember that little blond girl in the dress, eternally inquisitive, impossibly bold, never changing and never growing old?

PETER
:
But we all grow old
! … That's the story of our lives: the one immutable; the one inescapable. The crocodile in the lagoon, the iceberg on the horizon, death just around the corner, tick tick tick. I'm grasping now but–

ALICE
:
(Interrupts.)
What's your name
?

PETER
: Peter Davies, ma'am.

ALICE
: All of it.

PETER
: Peter Llewelyn Davies.

ALICE
: Peter Pan.

Beat
.

PETER
: There were five of us.

ALICE
: Well, this is rich!

PETER
: I suppose so.

ALICE
: And a little bizarre.

PETER
: Mm.

ALICE
: Were you planning on telling me?

PETER
: No, actually, I wasn't intending —

ALICE
: Of course not. But how could you help being who you are?

PETER
: And how can you?

It's a bit of a challenge
.

She moves around the room
.

ALICE
: Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. We're practically our own children's book department… There were five of you?

PETER
: Five boys, yes. Five brothers… And there were three sisters?

ALICE
: Yes, we three Liddell girls, back in Oxford.

PETER
: But you're “Alice.”

ALICE
: As you're “Peter”… But after all, what's in a name?

PETER
: What isn't?

She understands
.

ALICE
: With me, it has been a wholly happy connection. When people find out, they always smile, for they're
bringing so many associations with them: first time hearing the story; first time reading the book; then reading it to their own children. You see it in their faces, the pictures behind that smile of recognition: the White Rabbit; the Mad Hatter; the Cheshire Cat. I think they smile because what they're really remembering is
themselves as children
, and for that moment I see the wonder returning to them… When I look over my days I feel I was given a gift by Mr. Dodgson. Out of everyone, there's only one Alice. He made me
special
. And that uniqueness has given me a lifetime of people looking back at me, with a growing smile, remembering their better selves, when they were new and life was before them and all they needed to find their way through was a little courage, a little imagination, and a bottle labeled “Drink Me.”

PETER
: I heard that speech on the wireless a few weeks ago.

ALICE
: Well it is my speech.

PETER
: Very effective.

ALICE
: I'm glad you think so. You'll be hearing it again in a few minutes.

PETER
: Lovely words. But we know better though.

ALICE
: Do we?

PETER
: I think so.

ALICE
: You're presumptuous.

PETER
: The truth isn't so easy.

ALICE
: Ah, there's the “truth” again.

PETER
: Let me tell you the rest of the story and you tell me… So, yes, the smile of recognition, all the associations coming back: the first time they saw the play; the first time they read the book. Peter and Wendy. Neverland. Captain Hook. Tinkerbell… But a second after those happy memories comes that look of confusion and doubt, and then this in their eyes: “But how can you be Peter Pan?
You? The Boy Who Never Grew Up? That's not you. You have egg on your collar. You can't fly. You're not Alice. Alice was a little blond girl, I know she was. You're lying to me.”
And then they remember
.
What growing up really is
: when they learned that boys can't fly and mermaids don't exist and White Rabbits don't talk and all boys grow old, even Peter Pan, as you've grown old. They've been
deceived
. As if you've somehow been lying to them. So following hard on the smile of remembrance is the pain in the eyes, which you've caused, every time you meet someone.

ALICE
: How can you say it's a lie? They're just stories.

PETER
: As a publisher I've an obligation to tell the truth.

ALICE
: You talk like a very young man, and callow. The truth isn't a mathematical equation that always works out to the precise sum. It's variable. It's mutable. Lord, the longer I live the more I know there's no such thing as
certainty
! There are only passing moments, and I savor the ones that bring me some damn comfort in a cold house. If it's a lie, why does it keep me warm?

PETER
: It doesn't and it can't.

ALICE
: You're presumptuous again.

PETER
: I'm sorry.

ALICE
: You're not at all. You think you're being clever: “No one gets the better of me. I see the world as it really is. I'm a marvelous honest fellow. Pity the poor old lady living in her memories of things that never happened.” You're so young. You are the Boy Who Never Grew Up!

PETER
: Believe me; the one thing I thoroughly know is
growing up
!

ALICE
: Then tell me.

PETER
: What?

ALICE
: What is “growing up” precisely?

PETER
: Well, I suppose…

ALICE
: Specifically.

PETER
: I don't know that I can —

ALICE
: It's the one thing you “thoroughly know.”

PETER
: Well, it's
complicated
—

ALICE
: Is it?

PETER
: I wouldn't know where to start —

ALICE
: Was it the day you realized your parents aren't perfect? When you got your first long trousers? Going to school? Saying hello? Saying goodbye? Your heart opens? It breaks? It heals? It breaks again? Which is it?

PETER
: When you realize what life is.

ALICE
: Too vague. You're after the
truth
, aren't you? Being a publisher and all?

He looks at her. She is like iron staring back at him
.

He reorients himself in the room
.

PETER
: Do you think back on your life?

ALICE
: As rarely as possible.

PETER
: Will you try?

ALICE
: Why should I?

PETER
: To help me understand. We can swap a truth for a truth.

ALICE
: I'm not sure I trust you…

PETER
: Who but me? Peter and Alice.

Suddenly, a man's voice is heard:

CARROLL
:
(Offstage.)
Alice
! …
Alice
! Where have you gone?