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the party was going on and everyone was celebrating I wandered onto the stage by myself. Just me… How large it was… I saw the painted backdrop of Neverland. The pirate ship…the wooden moon… And I closed my eyes and spread my arms… And it was true.
    ALICE : Through the looking glass…
    PETER : For a moment… Then I opened my eyes and heard the party, and Uncle Jim calling me, and my brothers laughing… And life went on.
    ALICE : But it was true.
    PETER : When I was a child.
    Beat .
    ALICE : So was Wonderland. I could chart every foot of it. But the depths of Mr. Carroll, those anguished letters… Those were the Jabberwocky, the dangerous, impenetrable things.
    PETER : Uncle Jim wrote letters too, compulsively, hundreds of them. He poured out his heart to us.
    ALICE : He did love you.
    PETER : Oh yes. But it was a melancholy kind of love, because it was always entwined with an inevitable sadness. He knew we were going to grow up and leave him alone… First George to Eton and Oxford and then Jack and then me and then Michael… Michael, who always set his truest course…
    BARRIE : Dear Michael, The Adelphi House is haunted tonight. I think your brother’s namesake is tapping at the window in search of his shadow. Sometimes I feel I’m in search of my shadow as well, but he’s busy with his mannish pursuits at Eton…
    PETER : They wrote to each other every single day from the time Michael went to school… Mountains of letters, oceans of words… Sometimes the separation was too much forUncle Jim and he would go to Eton and stand on the fringes of the playing fields, watching him from a distance.
    ALICE : Like a lover.
    PETER : Like a sailor’s wife waiting for her husband to return from the sea.
    ALICE : And the letters…and the devotion that inspired them… all gone now…like a Mad Hatter’s dream…smoke and ash…a little dust in the corner of the box you keep your toys.
    She looks at PETER .
    ALICE : It is a love story, as you promised.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND hops up, breaks the mood, turning to PETER PAN :
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Come here, boy! Dance with me.
    PETER PAN : No!
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Why not?
    PETER PAN : Because you’re very ugly.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : No I’m not.
    PETER PAN : Because I’ve many important things to do. There’s a staff meeting this morning and I’ve a luncheon appointment at Simpson’s.
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : If this is a love story there has to be dancing.
    PETER PAN : Not with me!
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND : Don’t you want to fall in love?
    PETER PAN : When I’m old and practically dead. And since I’m immortal, that’s never, so there.
    He stomps away .
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND is hurt .
    ALICE steps forward and offers her hands .
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND looks at her, smiles and takes her hands .
    Gentle music as they dance .
    REGINALD ( REGGIE ) HARGREAVES enters crisply, like a fresh breeze. He’s a good-looking, athletic, hearty young man. It is 1879 .
    REGGIE : Alice Liddell, you promised me the next dance!
    ALICE turns to him, surprised .
    REGGIE : What are you staring at? I’ve been waiting over there all night like – what? – a Labrador or some other sad sort of whathaveyou. Come on! You won’t be so churlish as to renege!
    ALICE : Reggie…?
    ALICE IN WONDERLAND happily hands ALICE to REGGIE .
    REGGIE : Before we dance, I’ve got to say something to you. What I mean is…well… Let’s clap hands and make a go of it! Lord, what an ass I am! Sorry – didn’t mean to say “ass.” Blast it all! Sorry – didn’t mean to say–! Look what you do to me, Miss Liddell!
    She laughs. He’s charming in his inarticulate awkwardness .
    REGGIE : At least I made you laugh, that’s something.
    ALICE : You could always make me laugh.
    REGGIE : I’m an absurd fellow, no use hiding the fact, as if