The British dramatist Tom Taylor is most famous for writing Our American Cousin, the comedy Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.
Taylor's adaptation begins with a prologue in 1762, in which the audience sees events that are only narrated in a document that appears much later in the book. Doctor Manette (originally played by James Vining) is summoned to an old house outside of Paris where he meets the Marquis of St. Evremond (Walter Lacy) and his disgraceful younger brother.
Both Manette and the Marquis show up again later in the play, somewhat older, but portrayed by the same actors in the original production. What I find interesting is that the actor playing the Marquis's brother then doubled as that character's son, Charles Darnay. An innocent victim of the aristocrats, Colette Dubois, was played by the famous actress Madame Celeste, who reappeared later as Colette's sister, the vengeful Madame Defarge.
Celeste was the manager of the Lyceum Theatre, where Taylor's play was first performed on January 30, 1860. According to publicity for the show, Dickens himself "in the kindest manner superintended the production." How much of a role Dickens actually played, I'm not sure, but Taylor definitely takes considerable liberties with the source material.
The first act shows Manette "recalled to life" in 1783, not 1775, as in the novel. The second act shows the height of the French Revolution in 1793, where Sydney Carton delivers his famous line about "a far, far better thing" while still imprisoned, not from the scaffold.
Still, the adaptation hits many of the high points in the book, even though it irons out a lot of its complexities and ambiguities.
