THE JULIETS OF TODAY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Miss West's scathing criticism of " our contemporary juliets " overshoots the mark. Granted that Juliet should not be played as a child, there is, nevertheless, no need to deny her essential girlhood. " Alas that heaven should practise stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself ! "—is this an utterance of that mature womanhood Miss West would wish to see represented ? In any case, I may say, speaking for niyself and, I trust, in spite of the critics, for others, the most recent interpretation of Juliet's part, that of Miss Peggy Ashcroft, did not, to my unprejudiced sense, convey the impression of chil- dishness it appears to have evoked elsewhere. On the con- trary, I received a most lifelike impression of a girl ripening suddenly into a woman, which is surely what Shakespeare meant (unless the text means nothing). As I recall the exqui- site vitality of Miss Ashcroft's sincere and intense presentation of Juliet, I feel amazed to think it could suggest comparison with " a little Victorian girl's clandestine romance."— I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
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