THE
PROBLEM PLAY
Thesis play – Discussion play – The comedy of Ideas
Introduction:-
The problem
play also called ‘Thesis play’, ‘Discussion play’, and ‘the comedy of
Ideas’ is a comparatively recent form of drama. It originated in 19th
century France but was effectively practiced and popularized by the Norwegian
playwright Henrik Ibsen. In problem plays, the situation
faced by the protagonist is put forward by the author as a representative
instance of a contemporary social
problem . It was introduced into England by Henry Arthur Jones and A.
W. Pinero towards the end of the 19th century. G.
B. Shaw and Galsworthy took the problem play to its height in the 20th
century. H . Granville- Barker
was the last notable practitioner on this dramatic type. Thus the Problem Play
flourished in England in the period between the last years of the 19th
century and the middle of the 20th century.
Problem play-Defined
The
term Problem play was coined by Sydney Grundy who used it in a
disparaging sense for the intellectual drama of the nineties, which he believed
was marching to its doom in the hands of ‘a coterie of enthusiastic eccentrics’. As its very name indicates ,
a problem play is a drama built around a specific problem , or to propose a
solution to the problem which is at odds with prevailing opinion .The issue may
be inadequate autonomy , scope , and
dignity allotted to women in the middle class 19th century family( Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, 1879) or the morality of
prostitution, regarded as typical product of the economic system in a
capitalist society( George Bernard
Shaw’s ‘Mrs . Warren’s Profession’ ,
1898) . The problem is generally of a sociological nature : for example,
Prostitution , inadequate housing , unemployment , labour unrest and so on. At times , however , a
problem play may rise above the immediate context of a problem to grapple with
larger ideological or even metaphysical and universal issues . The problem
playwright was supposed to convey ideas and not to tell story. The problem play
lacked action . Ibsen’s A
Doll’s House , 1879 , was regarded
as extremely boring because it suffered from ‘ an almost total lack of action ‘ and ‘a series
of conversations terminated by a accident .
The Elements of Propaganda
The problem play is sometimes called “the
propaganda play” , for the obvious reason that its intent is overtly
didactic and propagandist . The writer of the problem play is not a pure
aesthete , a dispassionate creator of beautiful artifacts for their own sake. Ibsen , Shaw and Galsworthy have
written such plays to direct public attention to social evils and wrong
attitudes .
Technique- the prominence of discussion
A sub
type of the modern problem play is the
discussion play, in which the social issue is not incorporated into a plot but
expounded in the give and take of a sustained debate among the characters. For
example in G .B Shaw’s Getting
Married the story is reduced to the minimum . Act III of ‘Man and Superman’
shows no action only a long debate .
Sean O’Casey(1884-1964)
Sean O’Casey was worthy successor of Synge. The works of O’Casey
is the next milestone in the literary history of the Abbey Theatre. An
Irishman of genius , he is a worthy successor
to Synge. His background however,
is not Aran Islands but the slums of Dublin, inhabited by loafers and
disturbed by drinks and violence The Shadow of a Gunman was produced at the
Abbey Theatre in 1923. It is a realistic study of Anglo-Irish war of
1920, depicting the bloodiness and violence of the struggle and the tenacity of
the participants. His next play ,Juno and the Paycock, produced at the
Abbey Theatre in 1924, is his
masterpiece. It has its setting in 1922. The Plough and the Stars (1926)
is a chronicle play about the Easter Rising of 1916. The Silver Tasse
(1929) deals with the 1914-18 war. It is a harrowing exposure of the damage
trench warfare in France did to the
men’s hope and happiness. Among his other plays mention may be made of
within the Gates(1934), Red Roses for Me (1946), Cock-a-Doodle Dandy(1949).
The Plays of O’Casey are about Irish life and the tragedy
and comedy of this life is well brought out in dialogues , which are vivid
,racy and rhythmical. In O’Casey comedy and tragedy sit cheek by jowl.
Comedy is seldom long absent, yet one can never forget the grim, underlying sadness. He draws what he sees with a ruthless
objectivity and an impressionist vividness of detail.
“The characters of O’Casey are weak , they are crude and
pitiable, they are comic creatures speaking a rich lingo of Dublin Slums. They
strut about ,boasting ,Singing, quarrelling, drinking in unflagging vitality.’’
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Shaw had courage and self-possession almost in
the same measure as intellectual incisiveness and wit. With all his amazing
originality he was highly indebted to Ibsen. In fact his adulatory book on
Ibsen The Quintessence oflbsenism (1891) was published a year before the
appearance of his own first play Widowers' Houses the first of the long
series of problem plays written by him over the length of more than forty
years.
Ibsen's influence operated on Shaw in the
following two ways
My method of reforming
Is uy laughter, not by storming
Is uy laughter, not by storming
Shaw's problem plays amply show his consuming
moral intensity. He has been well called by Ward "the Knight of the
Burning Pencil, a crusader whose appointed lifework was the endeavor to
restore color and light and joy to England's once green and pleasant
land."
Secondly, Shaw learned to question the
customary beliefs of society and the accepted bases .of public institutions. He
tries to analyze and subvert such time-honored concepts as patriotism, the
supposed romance of war and chivalry, the self-assumed wisdom and realism of
John Bull as against the alleged volatility and sentimentality of the Irish,
and so on. His campaign is for rebuilding social institutions and creating a
new climate of ideas on the basis of rationality and unsentimental realism.
Witness his own words: "Progress is not achieved by panic stricken
rushes back and forward between one folly and another, but by sifting all
movements and adding what survives the sifting to the fabric of our morality.
In his problem plays. Shaw does this kind of
sifting to separate the husk from the grain. Almost in every such play his
intention seems to be to stand popular beliefs upside down. Truth is generally
ugly or inconvenient and therefore Shaw's wit and raillery have the function of
making it acceptable.
Shaw's first play—a problem play—was, in the
words of A. C. Ward, "A dramatic essay in 'social realism'
long before the term had been coined in Russia or elsewhere. Built
around the theme of slum-landlordism, Widowers 'Houses represents
the cruel oppression of the poor slum-dwellers by big financier-landlords. Mrs
Warren's Profession is about the evil of prostitution. Because of its
theme—which was at that time considered outrageous—it was banned by the censor
of the plays and was denounced by the public. The play is about the economics
of prostitution as a profession in a free society. Its other aspects are
ironically made subsidiary. Mrs Warren is far from being a romantic
courtesan. She is an ordinary, successful harlot. The Apple Carl is yet
another thought-provoking comedy. Shaw defends the institution of monarchy
which is represented in the play by King Magnus whose sagacious tactics upset
the "apple cart" of democratic leaders. But the real villian in the
play is neither monarchy nor democracy but capitalism (humorously represented
by Breakages and Company) which obstructs all social and economic progress. Arms
and the Man is a brilliant satire on the popular notions about love and
war. Bluntschli, the Shavian spokesman in the play, is an unforgettable,
no-nonsense mercenary who is fired not by any notions of chivalry and patriotism,
but by a matter-of-fact love of money and good living. He is not a coward, only
a down-to-earth realist who carries more chocolate than ammunition to the
battle-field. His function in the play is to cure the beautiful Raina of
her romantic ideas and make her see Sergius, her dream soldier and
fiance, in his true colors as a pompous humbug and worthless philanderer.
There is a group of Shaw's plays (such as Man
and Superman, Heartbreak House, and Back to Methusaleh) which treat
his favourite concept of "Life Force'" and being so are not
strictly problem plays but plays of ideas. By Life Force he means, in Ward's
words, "a power continually seeking to work in the hearts of men and
endeavouring to impel them towards a better and fuller life." Shaw
wavers between the mystic and the Christian in defining Life Force. He
describes it alternatively as "the Holy Ghost denuded of personality"
and "the will of God."
Shaw's best play Saint Joan is not
really a problem play though it addresses the problem of defining the real
character and significance of "The Maid"
John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
Galsworthy as a writer of problem plays is
hugely inferior to Slum. ! He lacks his wit, humor, and intellectual sharpness.
Il is said that Shaw's plays are deficient in emotion. Galsworthy's are .not,
but emotion in his works is hardly different from cheap and mushy sentiment.
His best-known play Strife represents the conflict between striking workers
and factory-owners, neither of them ready to surrender to the other. Ultimately
it is the death of the wife of the leader of the strikers which brings about a
reconciliation. The Skin Game dramatizes the struggle between old
aristocrats and the newly rich industrialists. ‘Justice’ and ‘The
Silver Box’ represent the evils of law, which treats some as more equal
than others, as also the irrationality of consigning people to solitary
imprisonment.
Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946)
Granville-Barker was the last notable
practitioner of the problem play. His plays include The Manying of Ann
Leete, Waste (which was censored), ‘The Madras House’, and ‘The
Voysey Inheritance’. The last named, to quote Ward, "was his finest
achievements, and one of the best and richest plays of modern times."
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