The New Word
by J. M. BarrieGenre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Setting: England
Format of Original Source: Play
Recommended Adaptation Length:
Candidate for Adaptation? Promising
EXCERPT:
ROGER. ‘I know I look a bally ass. That is why I was such a time in coming down.’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘We thought we heard you upstairs strutting about.’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘John! Don’t mind him, Rogie.’
ROGER, haughtily, ‘I don’t.’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘Oh!’
ROGER. ‘But I wasn’t strutting.’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘That dreadful sword! No, I would prefer you not to draw it, dear–not till necessity makes you.’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘Come, come, Ellen; that’s rather hard lines on the boy. If he isn’t to draw it here, where is he to draw it?’
EMMA, with pride, ‘At the Front, father.’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘I thought they left them at home nowadays, Roger?’
ROGER. ‘Yes, mater; you see, they are a bit in the way.’
MRS. TORRANCE, foolishly, ‘Not when you have got used to them.’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘That isn’t what Roger means.’ (His son glares.)
EMMA, who, though she has not formerly thought much of Roger, is now proud to trot by his side and will henceforth count the salutes, ‘I know what he means. If you carry a sword the snipers know you are an officer, and they try to pick you off.’
NOTE FROM NMI: Barrie sometimes wrote his plays in prose, rather than in script format; but they are plays nonetheless.
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