Peter and Alice Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t exist, but was completely true… I think the photographs were just a way to give him a safe framework to explore some unknown and dangerous landscape. He transformed his desires into paper and silver nitrate. What could be more innocuous?
    PETER : Perhaps we all do that when we grow up. Find safe ways to make dangerous trips.
    PETER PAN : Generally the pirate lagoon is more dangerous than the Indian camp.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Except when it’s the other way around.
    PETER PAN : Exactly! … It’ll be dark soon. Help me find some wood for a campfire.
    PETER PAN and ALICE IN WONDERLAND assemble a campfire .
    ALICE : I went home that day and told my mother of our conversation in the darkroom. What I could understand of it… She didn’t let us see him after that. She made me burnall his letters. All that special purple ink he used, up in flames… A year later I received the manuscript of “Alice’s Adventures Underground” in the post. In his own hand, with his own drawings… I never thanked him.
    PETER : And you never saw him again?
    ALICE : Much later. When I was grown and married. We had tea with my sister Lorina… We were cordial strangers… The golden afternoon was over. I thought it was going to be endless. But it was as quick as the beating of a dragonfly’s wing.
    PETER PAN and ALICE IN WONDERLAND ignite their representation of a campfire .
    ALICE and PETER are drawn toward it as well…it suggests CARROLL ’s letters burning, the smoke drifting up .
    They all huddle by the fire, it’s warm and intimate… We’re in a beautiful representation of Neverland now .
    ALICE : Lord, as many days as are left to me, I’ll never forget those letters burning… It was the cruelest thing I’d ever seen: all the lovely words, all his heart’s devotion, gone . As if they never existed… It was the first time I realized that things don’t always stay the same… (she watches the smoke drift away)… There it goes; into the vapors… Should life really be that delicate?
    PETER : Life was supposed to be strong and hearty. Like a pirate.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : But sometimes it’s gossamer, like Tinker Bell.
    PETER PAN : Like a Mock Turtle’s tear… It gets cold at night in Neverland. He didn’t write about that.
    PETER PAN shivers, a little chilled .
    PETER unconsciously puts his arm around him .
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : There is no night in Wonderland. No one sleeps much.
    PETER PAN : The Dormouse sleeps… The Mad Hatter I think.
    ALICE : Would the Mad Hatter dream about being sane?
    PETER : Believe me, he would.
    ALICE : And Peter Pan, what would he dream of?
    PETER PAN : Mother.
    ALICE takes in the lovely fire, the stillness, the beautiful nighttime setting .
    ALICE : It’s enchanting here.
    PETER : Oh yes…
    He wanders forward, holding PETER PAN by the hand .
    PETER : Neverland is enchanting; it always was to me… I remember the first time I saw the play. I thought it was all real, you remember?
    PETER PAN : Yes.
    PETER : I thought you were real and Captain Hook was real and the painted flats were endless vistas.
    PETER PAN : Aren’t they?
    PETER : If they were you would have flown off forever, never to be seen again, onto the next…enchantment.
    He leaves PETER PAN and steps forward alone .
    PETER : I wanted to live there, Mrs. Hargreaves… From my box, the first time I saw the play, my brothers at my side, Uncle Jim busy somewhere backstage, I saw Neverland come to life. It was real. It was real… And it was so beautiful… I could fly.
    PETER PAN : You can.
    PETER : After the performance Uncle Jim took us backstage. It was a mad bustle, even that was thrilling. I mean I knew it wasn’t actually real, I knew they were all actors, and we were in a theatre… But I needed to know if this place existed, if it were somehow true , even though it wasn’t real.So as