Lily Brayton

Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher

Henry Ainley and Lily Brayton in As You Like It, postcard

Source: Maurice V. Brett (ed.), Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (London: I. Nicholson & Watson, 1934-38), vol. 2, p. 271

Production: William Shakespeare, As You Like It, His Majesty’s Theatre, London, 31 December 1907

Text: January 2nd, 1908. Two nights ago we took Chat to see As you like it, and he was moved, as everyone must be, to see it interpreted as it is just now (by Oscar Asche, Lily Brayton and Ainley). The fairy spirit of Shakespeare, and his reading of the child nature which is in all men till they die, come floating through every scene of the lovely play. Laughter and tears alternate, and sweep through the audience. It is not only the soul of the Renaissance, but the spirit of eternal joy, which dominates the Forest of Arden.

Comments: Reginald Baliol Brett, second Viscount Esher (1852–1930) was a British historian and an influential Liberal politician. Oscar Asche‘s production of As You Like It at the His Majesty’s Theatre in London was notable for the large number of potted plants and leaves employed to give the illusion of a real forest. Brett saw the play on 31 December 1907.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

Posted in 1900s, Theatre, United Kingdom and tagged As You Like It, Audiences, Henry Ainley, Her Majesty's Theatre (london), Illustrations, Letters, Lily Brayton, London, Oscar Asche, Reginald Brett, William Shakespeare on November 30, 2016 by urbanora. Leave a comment

Search for:

Theatregoing is an ongoing survey reproducing eyewitness testimony of seeing theatrical productions, from the sixteenth century to the present day.

Enter your email address to follow Theatregoing and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Venues

Witnesses

John Quincy Adams – Maurice B. Adams – James Agate – Archibald Alison – William Allingham – Hans Christian Andersen – Matthew Arnold – Walter Benjamin – Arnold Bennett – Mary Berry – Laurence Binyon – Harry Blacker – James Boswell – Reginald Brett – William Wells Brown – Hablot Knight Browne – Orville Hickman Browning – Frances Burney – Aaron Burr – John Byng – Neville Cardus – Percival Frederick Chambers – William Rufus Chetwood – Colley Cibber – Thomas Coryat – Samuel Curwen – Richard Harding Davis – Charles Dickens – Leonard Digges – William Dodd – Robert Dodge – John Downes – William Seymour Edwards – T.S. Eliot – John Evelyn – Henry T. Finck – Richard Flecknoe – Violet May Flynn – Simon Forman – Margaret Fuller – Marguerite Gardiner – Edmund Gayton – Francis Gentleman – Kate Terry Gielgud – Mary Gladstone – Oliver Goldsmith – James Greenwood – Catherine Elizabeth Havens – William Hazlitt – Paul Hentzner – C.W. Heriot – Harold Hobson – Thomas Jefferson Hogg – Philip Hone – Horace – Jack Howison – Anna Brownell Jameson – Franz Kafka – Ryszard Kapuściński – Fanny Kemble – Harry Kessler – Mirza Abul Hassan Khan – Karl Kingsley Kitchen – Herbert Kubly – Charles A. Leale – Henry Leigh – George Henry Lewes – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg – E.V. Lucas – Eric Lugg – Micheál Mac Liammóir – John Manningham – John Marston – Westland Marston – Henry Matthews – Alice Meynell – Paul Morand – Hannah More – Karl Philipp Moritz – Henry Morley – Gouverneur Morris – Naser al-Din Shah Qajar – Paul Nash – Philipp von Neumann – Sylas Neville – Harriette Story Paige – William Osborn Payne – Henry Peacham – Elisabeth Pepys – Samuel Pepys – Thomas Platter – Channing Pollock – Guy Price – Sydney Race – Henry Reeve – John Rickman – Robert Roberts – Henry Crabb Robinson – C.H. Rolph – William Howard Russell – George Augustus Sala – Ignatius Sancho – Walter Scott – Mihail Sebastian – Frances Lady Shelley – Mary Shelley – Benjamin Silliman – Louis Simond – Robert Southey – Reginald Spurgeon – Sidney H. Stewart – Philip Stubbes – Jun’ichirō Tanizaki – Thomas Tegg – Robert Tofte – Wolfe Tone – Boris Uxkull – Queen Victoria – Baron Waldstein – Henry Wansey – Evelyn Waugh – Lupold von Wedel – Edward William Wifen – Orrin Sage Wightman – Ashton Rollins Willard – Henry Wotton – Xenophon – Edmund Yates –

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31