The Princess and the Butterfly or the Fantastics (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

AFTER "The Benefit of the Doubt," Arthur W. Pinero's next play was a lighter comedy, entitled "The Princess and the Butterfly: or The Fantastics," which was first produced in London, at the St. James's Theatre, on March 29th, 1897. This piece was undertaken frankly by the author in one of those vacational intervals in which he is accustomed to permit himself a rest from major labours. The theme of this fantastic composition is the longing for youth that is felt at forty years of age; and Mr. Bernard Shaw, in the pages of the Saturday Review, did not scruple to point out that Pinero's interest in this subject' arose doubtless from the fact that he himself had recently turned forty.
In this five-act comedy, the leading characters, - Sir George Lamorant and The Princess Pannonia, - have passed the milestone of the forties and have arrived at that comfortable state of mind which permits them to arrange and to accept a marriage of friendship and convenience. But this arrangement is interrupted when the Princess is attracted to a scholarly young man whose youth is more emphatic than his scholarship, and when the hero is attracted by the charms of a wild and whirling girl who-being very young - has been wished upon him as a ward. Youth appeals to youthfulness - or even to the memory of youthfulness - as the deep calls unto the deep; and, in the end, the Princess and the Butterfly shake hands and part, to find a new access of happiness in concert with the fresh and dauntless energy of youth. This was Pinero's answer- in 1897 - to what Mr. Shaw defined as "the tragic preoccupation with the honors of middle age."
-"The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero," Volume 2