Thomas Betterton
The Greatest Actor of the Restoration Stage

The first biography for more than 100 years of the greatest English actor between Burbage and Garrick, Thomas Betterton.

David Roberts (Author)

9780521195843, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2010

270 pages, 11 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 1.7 cm, 0.57 kg

'This scrupulously researched biography … plugs a gaping hole in the history of London's theatres.' Studies in Theatre and Performance

Restoration London's leading actor and theatre manager Thomas Betterton has not been the subject of a biography since 1891. He worked with all the best-known playwrights of his age and with the first generation of English actresses; he was intimately involved in the theatre's responses to politics, and became a friend of leading literary men such as Pope and Steele. His innovations in scenery and company management, and his association with the dramatic inheritance of Shakespeare, helped to change the culture of English theatre. David Roberts's entertaining study unearths new documents and draws fresh conclusions about this major but shadowy figure. It contextualizes key performances and examines Betterton's relationship to patrons, colleagues and family, as well as to significant historical moments and artefacts. The most substantial study available of any seventeenth-century actor, Thomas Betterton gives one of England's greatest performing artists his due on the tercentenary of his death.

Introduction
1. Look my lord, it comes: Betterton's Hamlet
2. An obstinately shadowy Titan: Betterton in biography
3. An actor of London: early years, 1635–1659
4. A walk in the park: Betterton and the scene of comedy
5. In the Duke's Company, 1660–1663
6. Equal with the highest: Thomas Betterton and Henry Harris, 1663–1668
7. Actor management: running the Duke's Company
8. In the company of the Duke: Betterton and Catholic politics in the 1670s
9. Union: Betterton and theatrical monopoly, 1682–1695
10. Back to the future: breakaway to semi-retirement
11. Books and pictures: Betterton and the Chandos portrait
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Biography: literary [BGL], Theatre management [ANS], Theatre studies [AN]