The matinée was played at my request. I preferred to work rather than spend the whole day in a bad hotel.
Maude Adams.
In connection with "Peter Pan" is a curious and tragic coincidence. Of all the Barrie plays that Charles produced he loved "Peter Pan" the best. Curiously enough, it was little Peter himself who gave him the cue for his now historic farewell as he stood on the sinking deck of the Lusitania.
At the end of one of the acts in "Peter Pan" the little boy says:
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
These words had always made a deep impression on Frohman. They came to his mind as he stood on that fateful deck and said:
Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.
Having made such an enormous success with "Peter Pan," Miss Adams now turned to her third boy's part. It was that of "Chicot, the Jester," John Raphael's adaptation of Miguel Zamaceis's play "The Jesters." This was a very delightful sort of Prince Charming play, fragile and artistic. The opposite part was played by Consuelo Bailey. It was a great triumph for Miss Adams, but not a very great financial success.
Now came the first of her open-air performances. During the season of "The Jesters" she appeared at Yale and Harvard as Viola in "Twelfth Night." She gave a charming and graceful performance of the rôle.
But Maude Adams could not linger long from the lure that was Barrie's. After what amounted to the failure of "The Jesters" she turned to her fourth Barrie play, which proved to be a triumph.
For over a year Barrie had been at work on a play for her. It came forth in his whimsical satire, "What Every Woman Knows." Afterward, in speaking of this play, he said that he had written it because "there was a Maude Adams in the world." Then he added, "I could see her dancing through every page of my manuscript."