As You Like It

As You Like It, a comedy by William Shakespeare. The bard's sylvan comedy was first offered at the John St. Theatre in 1786 and later was selected to open the Park Theatre. Its richly panoplied, highly moral romanticism gave it immense appeal to all the changing approaches and attitudes of the Victorian era, especially so in the last half of the 19th century, when scarcely a season passed without a major presentation. According to William Winter, many of these mountings, notably in the troubled times of the Civil War and Reconstruction, leaned heavily on the darker, sadder aspects of the work, although Daly's biographer‐brother recalled that in the producer's 1869 offering, “The sing‐song of Mrs. Scott‐Siddons was like the carol of a bird in the forest of Arden.” Twenty years later his restudied version, with Ada Rehan as Rosalind, discarded “Every tone and every tint of melancholy.” Other great 19th‐century Rosalinds included Adelaide Neilson and Julia Marlowe. With the growing public cynicism that followed World War II, major revivals became less frequent, although the comedy retained its popularity with collegiate and, later, with festival groups. Probably the most famous and successful of later 20th‐century Rosalinds was Katharine Hepburn in an archly traditional Theatre Guild revival in 1950. Two different all‐male versions of As You Like It that originated in Great Britain made brief but notable stops in New York City in 1974 and 1994.