The Theater: Never Land

Sir James Matthew Barrie’s Peter Pan, originally produced in London in 1904 with the late Nina Boucicault as the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up, ran for 145 performances. The play has been revived in London every Christmas season since, except in the blitz years of ’40 and ’41. On Broadway, Maude Adams played Peter over 300 times between 1905 and 1916. Marilyn Miller and Eva Le Gallienne had flings at revivals in the ’20s and ’30s. Last week, the current Broadway production, with Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff, played its 238th performance, setting a new Peter Pan record; and there was no sign that the show would be closing any time soon.