history play

history play, a play representing events drawn wholly or partly from recorded history. The term usually refers to chronicle plays, especially those of Shakespeare, but it also covers some later works such as Schiller's Maria Stuart (1800) and John Osborne's Luther (1961). In a somewhat looser sense, it has been applied also to some plays that take as their subject the impact of historical change on the lives of fictional characters: David Hare's Licking Hitler (1978) has been reprinted with two other works under the title The History Plays (1984).