Restoration adaptations.
Many adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays were contrived to meet current sentiment of a less admirable type. But they failed efficiently to supersede the originals. Dryden and D’Avenant converted ‘The Tempest’ into an opera (1670). D’Avenant single-handed adapted ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ (1668) and ‘Macbeth’ (1674). Dryden dealt similarly with ‘Troilus’ (1679); Thomas Duffett with ‘The Tempest’ (1675); Shadwell with ‘Timon’ (1678); Nahum Tate with ‘Richard II’ (1681), ‘Lear’ (1681), and ‘Coriolanus’ (1682); John
Crowne with ‘Henry VI’ (1681); D’Urfey with ‘Cymbeline’ (1682); Ravenscroft with ‘Titus Andronicus’ (1687); Otway with ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (1692), and John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, with ‘Julius Cæsar’ (1692). But during the same period the chief actor of the day, Thomas Betterton, won his spurs as the interpreter of Shakespeare’s leading parts, often in unrevised versions. Hamlet was accounted that actor’s masterpiece. [332a] ‘No succeeding tragedy for several years,’ wrote Downes, the prompter at Betterton’s theatre, ‘got more reputation or money to the company than this.’