About History Play
The history play is theatre's way of arguing with the historians. From the Elizabethan chronicle plays through nineteenth-century European national dramas, history plays in this archive use real events and real people as material for an argument about legitimacy, succession, and the public exercise of power. They are not documentary — they are theatre — and they remain a genre actors and directors return to whenever the present politics begin to look unfamiliar.
All history plays in the archive (12)
- Master Olof: A Drama in Five Acts — by August Strindberg
- Edward the Second — by Christopher Marlowe
- King Henry VI, Part 1 — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry VI, Part 2 — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry VI, Part 3 — by William Shakespeare
- King John — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry IV, Part 1 — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry IV, Part 2 — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry V — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry VIII — by William Shakespeare
- King Edward III — by William Shakespeare
- King Henry V Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre — by William Shakespeare