Plays based on history are big this year

The history play, that genre that at its best transcends the oft-quoted line in Shakespeare's "Richard II" — "let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings" — is making a striking comeback in Britain.

The hottest theatrical offering in recent months has been a two-part, six-hour dramatization of the political machinations of Henry VIII's court. The Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies," adapted from Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize-winning novels by Mike Poulton, returns us to 16th century England, with the slippery political operator Thomas Cromwell getting a fairer-than-usual shake in this dynamic retelling.