JM Barries’ PETER PAN and Doubt

Flyer for Los Angeles previews before Peter Pan opened on Broadway in 1954

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”

Peter Pan in J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan

Just a few days ago, on October 20 in the year 1954, Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard starred in Peter Pan when it opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. The musical is based on J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and his 1911 novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. Music is mostly by Moose Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne. Many of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional ones by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

The production was planned as a limited run, having previously made a deal with NBC to be broadcast on television while still on tryouts in Los Angeles. It was followed by NBC telecasts in 1955, 1956, and 1960 with the same stars, plus several rebroadcasts of the 1960 telecast. Roger and I recently ushered for a local production of this version of Peter Pan at our local Virginia Samford and were enchanted.   

In the 1904 play, Barrie has Peter say, “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” Doubting ourselves, feeling unsure of our abilities, lacking confidence in our worth can make us want to give up. In fact, William Shakespeare wrote in Measure For Measure, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

I have been in places of self-doubt in the past. As an Enneagram Type Four, I used to feel as if I didn’t fit in, that I was totally different from other people. How was I so lacking? My overwhelming emotions told me that others had their lives together, but I was a hopeless mess.

Luckily, I found my way into the theatre world, where just about everyone is welcomed into the fold: to showcase their talents and work collaboratively. And, as I designed costumes for a hundred or more characters a year, I saw many personalities appear onstage with problems a lot more complicated than my suffering.

In my forties, I began to listen to audio recordings of wisdom teachers like Wayne Dyer. I know some people don’t like his tenets. PBS once called him “a preacher and proselytizer for ‘New Age/New Thought’ religion and a Washington Post interviewer dubbed him, “Dr. Wayne Dyer, king of the self-help writers.” And, his earlier works and talks can make him sound like a proponent of shallow prosperity theology. But as he continued on his path, his work moved into the field of advocating spiritual development and growth.

I put him in a category of sage philosophers, along with Peter Pan. Once you begin to doubt you can fly, then of course, you can’t. One of Dr. Dyer’s mantras that helped me was: “Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”

He once explained that the kernel of this idea comes from quantum physics. This scientific phenomenon maintains that the act of observation changes the functioning of particles being observed. In 1927, Werner Heisenberg devised the uncertainty principle, the idea that it is impossible to know both the position and speed of a particle (photon or electron) with flawless precision. In other words, the act of observing a particle changes the particle. In fact, the intriguing Copenhagen — a play by Michael Frayn — originates from an event that occurred in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner. In the play, we come to understand Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Bohr’s idea of wave-particle duality. If you subscribe to Audible, you can listen to a version of the play today.

So in talking about quantum physics and his own notion of changing the way you look at things, Wayne Dyer concluded, “If we extend this metaphor to larger and larger particles and begin to see ourselves as particles in a larger body called humanity or even larger — life itself — then it’s not such a huge stretch to imagine that the way we observe the world we live in affects that world. Think of this little journey into quantum physics as a metaphor for your life… Changing the way you look at things is an extremely powerful tool. Start by examining how you look at things. Is the Universe matching your way of looking?”

Are you uncertain about your ability to fly through life? Is your conviction about your talents flagging? Are you vacillating, uneasy, apprehensive, hesitant? Today is the day to do something about all that. This is the day to change the way you look at things. Journal about your abilities and achievements. Try working with a therapist. Give yourself some compassion. Find something to do that makes you feel good about yourself. Why not find your local community theatre? They might even be producing Peter Pan or Copenhagen!