Thomas Otway:
(3 March 1652, Trotton with Chithurst in Sussex – 14 April 1685).
English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv’d, or A Plot Discover’d (1682).
No balcony appeared in the famous romantic balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet (Juliet appears at a window in Shakespeare’s Act 2, Scene 2). Otway introduced the balcony in 1679 in his adaptation The History and Fall of Caius Marius.
His best-known play in blank verse, Venice Preserved, would be revived from its first performance in 1682 until the mid-19th century, which can only be said of plays by Shakespeare. With that said, he slept his life in poverty. Otway wrote several grand, dramatic female roles for the actress Elizabeth Barry, with whom he was in love. Towards the end of his life, he developed mental problems.
Shining through tears, like April suns in showers, that labour to overcome the cloud that loads ’em.
