A (tiny) Bit of history
Theatre was introduced in the English world by the Romans who built auditoriums all over Europe. During festivals, people would attend plays inspired by the Roman and Greek authors. Earlier plays concentrated mostly on biblical stories serving a double purpose to teach these stories and morality.
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By the medieval period alongside religion, theatre developed a form of early street theatre parting from the biblical stories. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality.
During the reign of Elizabeth 1 (late 16th and early 17th century) there was a revolution in all the Art forms, including drama (theater). People refer to this period as the Elizabethan Era or the age of William Shakespeare , perhaps the most famous playwright in the world, who wrote around 40 plays that are still performed in theatres across the world to this day and translated and performed in most languages.
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A form of drama based on human suffering that invokes pleasure in audiences. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically, it has a powerful effect on cultural identity and historical continuity.
The hero or the protagonist is usually flawed with one or more weaknesses. Throughout the course of the play, the hero struggles to achieve his objectives, which involves overcoming obstacles placed in his path. The hero is normally defeated and as a result of this, the play ends in unfortunate circumstances.
Famous examples of this genre include Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Romeo and Juliette.
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, comedy means a branch of drama, which deals with everyday life and humorous events. It also means a play of light and amusing type of theatre. Comedy may be defined as a play with a happy ending.
One of the functions of this genre is to entertain the audience by making them laugh.
Here’s an example of this genre: Midsummer Night's Dream [...]
Last of the three main genres in Western theatre, histories constitute a more recent genre than tragedy and comedy. Because it shares many if not most of its characteristics, it is sometimes considered a tragedy subgenre. A play in this genre is known as a history play and is usually based on a historical narrative, often set in medieval times. Histories emerged as a distinct genre from tragedy during Renaissance England. The best known examples of the genre are the history plays written by William Shakespeare, whose plays still serve to define the genre.
The histories—along with those of contemporary Renaissance playwrights—help define the genre of history plays. Shakespeare's Histories might be more accurately called the "English history plays." These plays dramatize historical events from English history as early as the reign of King John and as late as Henry VIII. In addition to these two, Shakespeare wrote eight plays covering the continuous period of history between the reigns of Richard II and Richard III.
Histories share many common traits to the tragedy, to the extent that the life of the historical character(s) they depict fits the characteristics of the tragedy. The main character may or may not die at the end, but considering the events usually follow a king’s life cycle, it usually ends with either the end of their life or the end of their reign.
History
