SOURCE: Viator, Timothy J. “Nahum Tate's Richard II.” Theatre Notebook 42, no. 3 (1988): 109-17.

In the following essay, Viator presents a stage history of Tate's Richard II, which he says reveals important facts about the monarchy's attitude toward the stage and censorship practices during the Restoration.

The stage history of Nahum Tate's The History of King Richard the Second has long been improperly understood. According to The London Stage, the King's Company produced Tate's adaptation as The Sicilian Usurper in December 1680 and, after the censors banned it, as The Tyrant of Sicily in January 1681. Robert D. Hume suggests, however, that the December dates “are a misconstruction from confusing evidence”.¹ After Charles Killigrew, the Master of the Revels, refused to license the play as Richard II, Hume argues, the King's Company staged it twice in January 1681 as The Sicilian Usurper, for which performances, the Earl of Arlington (Sir Henry Bennet), the...