"PRUNELLA" does not wither. It is as delicately fresh a thing as ever. In despite of its fragility, it is one of the most "important" of modern English plays; for it is the most spontaneously poetic. It owes nothing to the tradition of poetic drama. It is a perfectly natural product of the time we live in. It comes not of a laudable determination to handle grand passions in the grand manner, but of an impulse to express something that was in the hearts of the authors -- a wistful and melancholy little something, belonging to a time in which people, for all their outward strenuousness, are so frail, and so sick at heart.
The something that the authors had to express was rather an emotion than an idea. There is nothing modern in the idea that youth wanes, and passion fades, and pleasure palls, and after the spring comes the autumn. What is modern is the sense that after all it doesn't much matter, alas, and can't, alas, be taken quite seriously. That is the sense which pervades "Prunella." We feel that in the character of Pierrot the authors have dramatized themselves, and us. Often as Pierrot has been presented on the stage, never, I think, has his nature been shown so thoroughly.
However, it is not for its significance that "Prunella" is most highly to be valued, but rather for the mere story of it. The play is a succession of deliciously well invented scenes; and I know not which of these is the best. Prunella repeating her lessons in the prim garden, and hearing the distant sounds of the mummers' music; the colored ribands thrown into the garden over the yew hedge, and the flight of Prunella's aunts into the house; and Prunella's own flight into the house after Pierrot has kissed her; Pierrot lounging in the moonlight while the baritone of his troupe sings the serenade for him to Prunella's window, and then taking the guitar and striking a right attitude before the shutters shall be parted; smug Scaramel holding the ladder down which Prunella is carried in Pierrot's arms; Prunella's bewilderment while the troupe of Pierrot dances round her, pelting her with roses and urging her out to life; and the terminal statue that utters words to her and makes music with its stone fiddle; and the old gardeners, roused from their sleep, coming to find the garden empty and the statue still fiddling; later, when it is autumn, Pierrot wandering into the garden, not remembering it - Pierrot all in black with his followers all querulous, dishevelled, lame, but still trying to affect mirth; Pierrot recognizing the window, and then remembering Prunella, and calling for moonlight and song, and bidding Scaramel prop up the ladder-all in vain; the home-coming of Prunella, and her meeting with Pierrot, and the way in which.... no; the way in which Pierrot is converted from himself, and the play ends, seems to me the one fault in the play's scheme.
It is a pretty notion that Pierrot should really love Prunella, and should prove his love by daring to touch her after she has told him that she is a phantom, and that if he touches her he too will die. But it is not a notion in key with the rest of the play. It is a dodge for securing a happy ending at the expense of truth to Pierrot's character....
- The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Vol. 103 [1907]