Problem Play

The problem play is a form of drama that emerged in the nineteenth century as part of the wider realist movement in the arts, especially following the example of Henrik Ibsen, staging contentious social issues through debate among characters who represent conflicting points of view within a realistic social setting. Critic Chris Baldick describes it as rejecting the frivolity of intricately plotted romantic intrigue in the French well-made play tradition in favor of dramatizing a contemporary controversy of public importance, such as women's rights, unemployment, penal reform or class privilege, in a vivid but responsibly accurate way. The critic F. S. Boas later applied the term retrospectively to certain plays of William Shakespeare that shared these features, and it is now also used more broadly for tragicomic dramas that resist easy classification as either comedy or tragedy.