Tonight, it is your very great misfortune to be subjected to my reminiscences on one of the plays I did, back in my theater days. I found the movie version on Tubi last night, and watched it out of curiosity. As it has some historical/literary significance, I think I can be excused for rambling about it here, comparing it to my own experience.
“The Admirable Crichton” is a play first produced in 1902, by J. M. Barrie, who also wrote “Peter Pan” (like that play, it indulges his fetish for girls in boys’ clothing). The main character is the eponymous Crichton, a paragon among butlers, unquestionably the literary father to both Jeeves and Mervyn Bunter (“mere” valets though they were). He manages the stately home of his master, Lord Loam, with supreme exactitude. His master, a liberal, has vague ideas about social equality, of which Crichton strenuously disapproves. (“If my master were to be equal to me,” he explains at one point, “then I would be equal to the footman.” Or words to that effect.)
Then the family (Lord Loam and his three daughters, plus two suitors, a young gentleman and a clergyman included purely to keep things respectable), decide to take a cruise in the South Seas. Crichton, condescending to serve for the duration as Lord Loam’s valet, accompanies them, along with “Tweenie,” a housemaid.
When their ship is wrecked on a desert island, Nature begins asserting herself. It soon becomes plain that, as far as survival is concerned, Crichton is the only one among them qualified to either do practical things or to exercise leadership. Before long the social order is inverted. Crichton becomes the “Guv’nor,” and Lord Loam is his devoted personal servant. Crichton is a benign dictator to them all, admired and beloved. All the ladies long to be chosen as his wife. (The gentlemen, on the other hand, are vying for Tweenie’s attention.)
At last, after two years, Crichton realizes they’re not likely either to escape or be rescued. He announces that he will marry Lady Mary, the eldest daughter, who has become a sort of Diana, a wild huntress.
Then (spoiler alert), a ship appears on the horizon. Crichton, due to his profound sense of honor, lights the signal fire himself, summoning a boat to their rescue. He makes the decision to return to his servant’s status. Back in England, when he realizes his presence is an embarrassment to the family, he retires to run a pub, taking Tweenie as his wife. Lady Mary, who still loves him, is heartbroken.
Surely one of the finest productions ever done of Crichton must have been the one staged in March, 1993 by the Melbourne Civic Theater in Melbourne, Florida. (The fact that I played the lead role is purely coincidental to my mentioning it, of course. The local critic praised my performance: “It is said that acting is a series of choices, and Walker proves this saying with elegance.”) Having done several performances, I think I remember the play pretty well, and I was interested to watch the 1957 production, starring Gerald More (who was good, but no Walker).
The movie follows the play’s plot quite faithfully, but the dialogue is greatly altered. I guess this should be no surprise, as more than fifty years had passed since the play’s first opening. Times had changed. Still, I was surprised that Crichton’s initial moment of supreme self-abnegation, when he condescends to step down from the heights of butlerhood to serve as a mere valet (if only temporarily), was reduced to a couple lines and no serious struggle . And the play’s biggest boffo moment – a sight gag that always had the theater audience roaring with laughter (it involves a bucket), was completely omitted. There was also the business of a characteristic hand-washing gesture Crichton always performs as butler. He drops it entirely once he’s the Guv’nor, and the moment when he resumes servant status is marked by a resumption of the handwashing. This is also missing from the movie.
Nonetheless, the film worked pretty well on its own terms. Barrie was playing with some fairly radical social ideas here. The play could have been revolutionary (he pondered allowing Crichton to marry Lady Mary). But in the end he chose to give his audience an ending that preserved the status quo in action, while leaving them with a certain uneasiness of conscience. A sound business decision, no doubt.
After all these years, “The Admirable Crichton” remains an intriguing story, one that can be taken in more than one way.
