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1. PROF. R. R. BORSE,
ASST.PROF.,
ENG.DEPT.,
B.P.ARTS,S.M.A.SCI.,K.K.C.COM.COLLEGE,CHALISGAON
Problem play

10. # Problem Play is not for
entertainment…
# It is quite serious business…
# Art for art’s sake…
# Problem play believes Art for the
sake of society

11. Problem Play deals with current social
issues through debates between the
characters on stage, who typically represent
conflicting points of view within a realistic
social context.

12. It is a term commonly used to
describe a play which examines a
specific social or political problem
with the aim of igniting public
debate.

13. Towards the end of the Victorian age the drama of
social problems came into prominence in England.
The problem play was the presentation of a
contemporary question through realistic technique.
The dramatists writing plays of social criticism made
a conscious effort to deal with problems of
contemporary society and morality.

14. The drama which was directly inspired by the
social ferment of the time could be effective only
if it adopted a realistic form or medium, because
problem drama required a high level of
craftsmanship and dramaturgic skill.

15. It was a new experiment in form and technique,
and dispensed with the conventional devices and
expedients of the Victorian era, was closely
related to the growth of the realistic movement in
the field of English drama.

16. The term “problem play” was coined
by Sydney Grundy who used it in a
disparaging sense for the intellectual
drama of the nineties.

17. Shaw defined it as
“The presentation parable of the
conflict between man’s will and his
movement”.

18. Eric Bentley finds the justification of the word ‘problem’
on the ground that the play ends with a question mark.
He says that the dramatist’s business is to state his
problem clearly and effectively, and not to present a
readymade solution or to suggest a specific remedy.

19. Notable examples are ….
Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879), questioning the
subordination of women in marriage;
Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession (1902),
examining attitudes towards prostitution; and
Galsworthy's Justice (1910), exposing the
cruelties of solitary confinement and the legal
system.

20. Some plays by later writers such as
A. Wesker, J. McGrath, Caryl Churchill,
H. Brenton, and D. Hare also raise
contemporary issues, often using
drama as a wider canvas

21. George Bernard Shaw had the longest career in the
history of English dramatics. He was a moralist and a
propagandist.
His first play widower's Houses (1892) was “an
economic tract in dramatic form”, but it failed on the
stage. His collection of seven plays – Plays Pleasant
And Unpleasant – appeared in 1898 in which he
voiced his idea on a many social problem.

22. Galsworthy occupies a distinctive place in modern English drama.
His naturalism reminds us of Ibsen. He is a critic and interpreter of
contemporary English life in his dramas. Like Shaw, he handles
definite problems – these of marriage, of sex relationship, of
labour disputes, of the law, of solitary confinement, of caste
feeling or class prejudice. His The silver Box (1906) deals with the
inequality of justice. We see how the majesty of the law may end
in a horrible human mistake. Justice (1910) is a stern
condemnation of the contemporary legal system. It attacks the
evil of prison system especially the solitary confinement. It is a
powerful plea for sympathetic treatment of law – breakers.

23. The problem play was neglected in the 19th century, yet it was
not an outcast in the early 20th century.
It was unquestionably the fruit of a strong dissatisfaction with
the existing conditions of life.
It directed attention to the facts and problems of social life. Some
of the problem plays proved so effective that they imbued men’s
minds with a passionate resentment against social injustice
mobilized public opinion in favor of prison reform and hastened
legislative action.