PIPER, The. Josephine Preston Pea body's (The Piper' won a prize offered in com petition by the English actor, F. R. Benson, for the best poetic drama. It had previously been submitted to the New Theatre, New York, but had been rejected. The interest created by its production at the Memorial Theatre, Stratford upon-Avon, by the Benson Company, on 26 July 1910, warranted a reconsideration of the play by Mr. Winthrop Ames, with the result that it was given a colorful premiere at the New Theatre, on 30 Jan. 1911, Miss Edith Wynne Matthison the role of The Piper. It was hailed by the American critics as the precursor of a poetic revival on the stage. But thus fAr (1919) the American theatre has been pledged to the drama of condition, of psychology, rather than of poetry. And Miss Peabody's 'The Piper' stands better known as a reading drama than as a piece of the theatre. Judged as poetry, its story is clothed in a symbolism which makes the old legend of The Pied Piper of Hamelin take on a significant modern application. Judged as drama, its pictorial effectiveness is hampered by the infusion of social and Chris tian ethics, which are not as fully developed as they should have been. To Miss Peabody, The Piper represents the singing, free side of life, whereas Hamelin and its stodgy population are measure of the selfish, money-grubbing side of daily existence. The old Piper of Browning's poem and of the German folktale was simply a rat exterminator of prodigious merit. Miss
Peabody's Piper is the enchanter of childhood, and by his playing he would free them of Hamelin, which is inimical to the child spirit. His is not the compassionate love of Christ for little children, but it has the same lyric charm. The Lonely Man of the Cross who fascinates the crippled Jan, and his mother — the only Mother of Hamelin who goes forth in the right spirit to seek her child whom the Piper has lured away— are the spiritual threads on which the philosophy of the play is strung. This philosophy, slim though it be, has poetic beauty and universal applicableness. In a sensual way Ibsen's the Rat Wife in 'Little Eyolf' is re called by the Piper legend. And the ethics of the play seem to be this: that in all the Hamelins of this world, there are parents whose worldly vision separates them from a joyful life lived with their children. To preserve this life, the Piper, at the close of the play, goes onward, piping his lure of childhood until Christ's love for little children enters all our hearts.
Miss Peabody (Mrs. Lionel Marks) studied dramaturgy under Prof. G. P. Baker, at Harvard, and was for a time instructor of Eng lish at Wellesley College. In addition to Piper,' she has written the following dramas: 'Marlowe (1901) ; (The Wings> (1905) ; 'The Wolf of Gubbio' (1913).