'Other accents borrow': Bottomley, Baring and a New Approach to Adaptation

In 1597, the Burbage family lost its lease on the land that the theatre was standing on in the north end of London. They lost the land, but still owned the building. Their solution was to take the building apart, beam by beam, and move it piecemeal across the river to a new location. Once there, they rebuilt the theatre, beam for beam, and renamed it the Globe. ¹ despite its new name, it was the same theatre, albeit in a new setting. Consider this as an analogy for adaptation before the twentieth century. The theatre represents Shakespeare’s King Lear. For years, playwrights like Davenant and Tate simply took apart Shakespeare’s play, line by line, and rebuilt it after the same fashion, in a slightly different setting. The setting may have changed, and perhaps some of the details, but the play still remained fundamentally the same.