While artistic director of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner admitted to quietly rewriting Shakespeare in places where the plays were unclear to contemporary audiences. This admission liberated theatrical tinkerers and it’s now rare to see a pre-nineteenth-century play that doesn’t list in the programme some variety of script doctor.For the National Theatre’s revival of George Farquhar’s 1707 comedy The Beaux’ Stratagem, director Simon Godwin and dramatist Patrick Marber (Closer, Dealer’s Choice) are credited with “dramaturgy”, a vague term that can cover cutting and shaping to extensive new dialogue.This approach, though, changes the viewer’s relationship with the play. Two of the pleasures of revisiting old plays are a sense of h