This Atom in the Audience: A Digest of Reviews and Comment by Percy Hammond, 1940

Referring to the play A Kiss for Cinderella.

Maude Adams-And Mr. Barrie. All's Well

Miss Maude Adams and Mr. James M. Barrie had agreeable employment last evening in telling anew the oldest of the fairy tales-of Cinderella, the crystal slipper, the great ball in the King's palace and the gorgeous Prince who knealt at the pretty feet of the adorable lady of the ashes. It is needless to say how well they told it, because all who have the sanity of sentiment, a bit of imagination and a sense of pity and humor know that Barrie is the gentlest and wisest of the men who write for the theater today, and that in Miss Adams he has an ideal interpreter.

How amiably and simply does Mr. Barrie cross his legs and expound his tender fancies, and how wondrously does Miss Adams catch his mood and evoke it. In callow days it was my habit to patronize Maude Adams because she was usually the same, as she should have been. For the Barrie plays she has always been right, she is so vague a public character, so cloistrous, so cleanly, so reticent of the flesh, and yet so human and humorous. She and her author are not, perhaps, for the current younger generation; but for sapient childhood, and for us who face the snows, they speak with understanding.

In “A Kiss for Cinderella,” Mr. Barrie (it is, isn't it, impossible to call him Sir James?) again luxuriates in the idea of a girl playing mother to older children, as in “Peter Pan,” “The Wedding Guest” and “Little Mary.” Cinderella is a passionate little London charwoman whose g enius for affection engages itself in the adoption of war waifs, and whose vast charitableness extends even to the child of an enemy land. She is a poet who knows that her fet are lovely, and that knowledge, added to her passion for make-believe, inspires her to imagine that she is Cinderella, and that sometime a fairly godmother will guide her to her handsome prince. Half-starved, she falls asleep upon the pavement, waiting the “invite” to the magic ball, and the dream through which she peeps into glory is set forth by Mr. Barrie in a fine, delicious frolic. A Stalwart policemen becomes in Cinderella's vision her high-born gallant; the various belles are animated incarnations of popular pictures-Mona Lisa, the Duchess of Devonshire, Carmen et. cetera; and the King and Queen are from a deck of cards.

Miss Adams is never maudlin, even though temptation is great, and she is always a charming picture of “hominess.” There is a beguiling moment or two in the last act where, in the country, upon a convalescent's bed, she receives the policeman's romantical proposal of marriage. The heart of him, as Mr. Barrie says, cries out for love of her, and his speech is that wonderful thing between fantasy and reality. He is so much a Barrie suitor that, instead of a betrothal ring, he brings a pair of glass slippers, which, when placed upon her tiny feet, look to her like kisses.

There were those around me last night at the Blackstone Theater who wondered what it was all about. Maturity has, at times, its great advantages. (

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