Thomas Betterton

Thomas Betterton , 1635?-1710, English actor and manager. He joined Sir William D'Avenant's company at Lincoln's Inn Fields theater in 1661 and became the leading actor of the Restoration stage, the theatrical leader of his time. In the role of Hamlet he was acknowledged as the greatest since Burbage. After D'Avenant's death (1668), he became the head of the company and moved to the Dorset Garden theater (1671), which he partially managed, and where he was especially successful in adaptations of Shakespeare by Dryden, Shadwell, Tate, and himself. Betterton managed the Drury Lane theater from 1682 until 1695, at which time he reopened a theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with Congreve's Love for Love as his first production. In 1705 he moved his company to the new Haymarket theater, built for them by Sir John Vanbrugh, where he made his last appearance in 1710. Sent to Paris by James II to study French technique, Betterton adopted new ideas in his theaters, especially in regard to scene design. His wife, Mary Saunderson Betterton, d. 1711, was the first woman to act Shakespeare's great female characters, most notably Lady Macbeth. Both are buried in Westminster Abbey.

Bibliography: See R. W. Lowe, Thomas Betterton (1891, repr. 1972); B. Marinacci, Leading Ladies (1961).

Betterton, Thomas (1635–1710), the greatest actor in the Restoration, joined D'Avenant's company at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was associated in the management of the Dorset Garden Theatre from 1671. His dramas include The Roman Virgin (acted 1669); The Prophetess (1690), an opera; and King Henry IV (1700).

Betterton, Thomas (?1635–1710), English actor, the greatest figure of the Restoration stage. He was in the company which reopened the Cockpit in 1660, and soon after joined Davenant's company at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. After Davenant's death in 1671, the company, of which Betterton was by then joint manager with Henry Harris, moved to a new theatre in Dorset Garden, and remained there until it was amalgamated with the company at the Theatre Royal in 1682. In 1695 Betterton broke with the management of the Theatre Royal and successfully reopened the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields with the first performance of Congreve's Love for Love, moving 10 years later to Vanbrugh's new theatre in the Haymarket (see HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE). He was a good manager and an excellent actor, both in comedy and tragedy, his Hamlet and Sir Toby Belch (in Twelfth Night) being equally admired. He adapted a number of Shakespeare's plays to suit the taste of the time, and in 1690 turned Fletcher's The Prophetess (1622) into an opera with music by Purcell. Though not so well suited to Restoration comedy he excelled in heroic drama, and created many leading roles by contemporary dramatists. Betterton's wife was Mary Saunderson (?–1712), one of the first English actresses, whom Pepys in his Diary always refers to as lanthe, from her excellent playing of that part in Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes.