Shakespeare Adaptations in the Restoration by Barbara A. Murray (review)

53 cial system in which the theater grew. In Part One, ‘‘The Theatre Restored: 1660–1700,’’ Mr. Thomson discusses the influence Charles II had over the reopened theaters and the backgrounds of Killigrew and Davenant, the first managers in this new era. Part Two, ‘‘The Theatre Reformed: 1700–1737,’’ is an excellent synthesis of the complicated theatrical history, particularly regarding Christopher and John Rich, the father/ son patent holders. Examining the influence of Addison and Steele, Mr. Thomson in this first subsection in Part Two judiciously explores the debate over sentimental comedy in the period. The drama subsection in Part One introduces the reader to the standard plot lines and character types in Restoration comedy as well as covering the frequently ignored (yet important) genre of Restoration tragedy. In Part Two, Mr. Thomson illustrates the historical progression of all of the genres and subgenres of drama and points to important derivations from formally popular literary styles and tropes such as Steele’s The Conscious Lovers (1722) and Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728). In actors and acting, Mr. Thomson highlights the impact actresses had on English theater, not only on the text itself, but also on the development of the prologue/epilogue and the relationship between the performance and the audience. He examines the creation of the actor as celebrity, and individuals such as Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Barry, and Colley Cibber, as well as the rising eighteenth-century interest in Shakespeare . The text of this Introduction is supplemented with extended quotations from primary sources, historical time lines, and other relevant factual information in strategic grey boxes. Mr. Thomson has included portraits of prominent individuals, reprints of satiric cartoons, and architectural specifications of theater buildings. In this excellent resource, Mr. Thomson synthesizes primary texts to create a cohesive narrative that draws on theatrical history, politics, and literature. Elisabeth J. Heard Harold Washington College BARBARA A. MURRAY. Shakespeare Adaptations in the Restoration. Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson, 2005. Pp. 556. $50. Adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays provide valuable insight into the taste and the conception of dramatic imitation of the period in which they are made. Ms. Murray’s thesis is that the five previously unedited adaptations here offered reflect the political turmoil of their time. However, given the lapse of time from the Popish Plot/Exclusion Crisis to the dates of publication of the plays—in some cases fifteen months, in others several years—her embracing thesis is questionable. In fact, Ms. Murray herself often argues both for and against her declared theme. For example , in her Introduction to the ‘‘Three English History Plays’’ she states her case and then contradicts herself, arguing first that Tate (The History of King Richard the Second, The Sicilian Usurper ) and Crowne (Henry the Sixth, the First Part, with the murder of Humphrey Duke of Glocester) were responding directly to the Popish Plot/Exclusion Crisis in choosing the plays they adapted, and then claiming that they were not making political points: ‘‘Arguably, however, Crowne and Tate were looking at the past at this time, not to make complex political or legal points, but rather 54 to illustrate something more timeless about the precariousness of power, hedged about as it is with the private devices and desires of fallible mortals.’’ But so is every history play in every age concerned with the ‘‘precariousness of power’’ and the devices and desires that corrupt power, from A Mirrour for Magistrates , on which Shakespeare’s history plays often drew, to Macbird of the Viet Nam war period, to the present day. The question with which Ms. Murray is presumably concerned is what makes Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare special. Unfortunately, in her Introduction , which is the only place that the editor gives us her own commentary, she never asks ‘‘why.’’ Why does Ravenscroft ’s Titus Andronicus make Aron the Moor not heroically evil in the conventional Renaissance mode, but foul simply because he is black? Ms. Murray records the new lines Ravenscroft gives to ‘‘the dark-skinned Aron,’’ but does not speculate on how they express the new Restoration attitudes toward blackness —that is, she does not ask why a Moor in 1687 is ‘‘foul’’ because he is black. New conceptions...