Performing Shakespearean Tragedy, 1660–1780

As much as we may look for continuities across historical divides, the Interregnum and the closing of the theatres produced many kinds of fracture in the ways Shakespeare’s tragedies were performed. This chapter uses four case studies—Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear—to explore the history of tragic performance in the period between 1660 -1780, and to reveal the complexities of the cultural contexts within which the re-making and re-presenting of Shakespeare on stage took place. From the various treatments of Juliet's awakening in adaptations by Otway, Cibber and Garrick, through the ways in which performance and published texts of Hamlet differed, to the record of what Macbeth wore and what he said before he died, and to the emotions that performances of King Lear were intended to evoke in their audiences, we can trace the changes in audience taste that remade Shakespearean tragedy on the stage.