Tragicomedy

Polonius:

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical- comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

Tragicomedy in theatre

Many of Shakespeare's later plays such as Cymbeline, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale were tragicomedies. Tragicomedy is a common genre in post-World War II British theatre, with authors as varied as Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard, John Arden[?], Alan Ayckbourn and Harold Pinter writing in this genre.

Tragicomedy in film

Dark comedy was a popular genre in British films of the early 1990s. An example of a dark comedy is Life is Sweet, by British director Mike Leigh[?].

See also

• Theatre of the absurd

External links

• Tragicomedy from Ancient Greece to Shakespeare (http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/m/p/mpl10/tragicom.htm)
• Post-war British drama (http://www.lgu.ac.uk/language/english/unit_descriptions/level3/le306.htm)