Skip to main content

The Problem Plays

 







There are three plays by Shakespeare that are collectively referred to as the “problem plays.” They are not called problem plays because there is anything particularly wrong with them, or because they are problematic. (To be fair, there are things in these as in other Shakespeare plays that a modern audience might take issue with, but that is not why they are called problem plays). They are called problem plays because whether they are comedies or tragedies, they deal with societal problems. They have dark subject matter and they tend to be cynical. They juxtapose broad comedy with harsh dramatic situations (I suspect another reason they are called problem plays is because they are difficult to categorize). Resolutions tend not to be clear-cut. The good guy doesn’t necessarily get the girl, and the bad guy may not be punished. It was unusual for a playwright of the time to write plays like this. Comedies were supposed to be funny all the way through with a well-defined happy ending. Tragedies were supposed to be serious drama with a resolutely sad ending. Shakespeare was not averse to breaking the rules. His plays tend to be more complex than his contemporaries.

The first time I saw Measure for Measure I was in my mid-twenties. I had seen a few of his plays by then. I knew the general rule that comedies had happy endings and tragedies had sad endings. But I remember watching measure for Measure saying to myself, “what’s this?” It seemed to be a dark drama, and then this guy popped out who was hilariously funny. Then it would get dark again. As the play drew close to near the end, I still did not know if this was going to end happily or not. Would Isabella be okay? Would Angelo get what he deserved? Would Claudio die? It was actually suspenseful in a way I had never seen a Shakespeare play be suspenseful. Maybe that was the point. As you may have guessed by now, Measure for Measure is one of the problem plays (the other two plays that scholars call the problem plays are All’s Well that Ends Well, and Troilus and Cressida). Measure for Measure is a comedy, but it deals with things like sexual assault, a fanatical adherence to the letter of the law, vengeance, abuse of power, and lust. Measure for Measure also has what I would describe as the most Christian moment in all of Shakespeare. Lots of people call themselves Christians who live their lives completely divorced from the teachings of Jesus. That was as true in Shakespeare’s day as in ours. But when Isabella sees Angelo brought for justice before the Duke, this man who had abused his power, sexually blackmailed her, and who had killed her brother (she believed), no one would have blamed her for asking for his head. Instead, when such a punishment is proposed, she begs the Duke for mercy on his behalf. Almost nobody (no matter what their religion) would find it in their hearts to do this. But this is one novice who has taken her vows seriously. We, in the audience all want Angelo killed, but then Isabella shames us with her words.

The problem plays not only skirt the line between comedy and tragedy, but examine moral dilemmas. Central characters find themselves torn between what they want to do and what they should do. Unlike the pure love story in Romeo and Juliette, the love story in Troilus and Cressida turns cynical and tainted. The problem plays also have unlikeable characters: Bertram and Parolles in All’s Well the Ends Well, Angelo in Measure for Measure, Pandarus and Thersites in Troilus and Cressida. Nobody went to the theater in 1602 to watch characters like these. Yet to a modern audience, complex, even unlikeable characters make a story more interesting.   

Some writers add other plays to the list of problem plays like Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s tale, and Timon of Athens. They all have elements of the above, but for my money, Measure for Measure, the one that caused me to scratch my head and say ‘what is this?’ is the most problematic (in a good way) of the problem plays.

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Second Wind

  You have heard about athletes getting their second wind? It is not that they feel better, that they are warmed up and ready to run more easily. It is not psychological (at least, not all psychological). No. There is an actual physiological truth to a second wind. It all has to do with respiration. When I say respiration, I am not talking about breathing. Respiration is a biochemical process that happens at the cellular level. It is how the cell gets energy. There are lots of chemical processes that are constantly going on in each cell, and those processes require energy. Without a constant feed of energy, the cell will die. The more demands there are on a cell, the more energy it needs. For example, every one of your muscle cells need more energy when you are running.   In fact, you won’t be able to run if the cells don’t have sufficient energy for it. The energy currency of the cell is a molecule called ATP. You may have heard that sugar is how our bodies get energy, wh...
1 comment
Read more

The Outsider

  I am reading The Outsider by Stephen King. The first 150 pages or so I found disturbing. Not for the reason you might think. It is not scary, not creepy in a traditional horror way, but disturbing in a tragic way. The first hundred to 150 pages is tragedy on top of tragedy. The most disturbing thing to me (it is disturbing to me anytime I encounter it in any story) is a false accusation. A man is falsely accused and may well be convicted of a horrific crime. That kind of thing disturbs my soul. It makes the whole world seem wrong. I have always been disturbed by stories with that kind of thing. And why not? It happens in real life too. That makes it all the more horrific. In the Jim Crow South, all you had to do was make an accusation against a black man to set the lynch mob in action. No need to bother with a trial. But even if there was a trial, the outcome was a foregone conclusion, innocent or not. We see Vladimir Putin inventing charges against people and they get locked up...
1 comment
Read more

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more