What is it that makes Shakespeare’s problem plays problematic? Many critics have sought for the underlying vision or message of these puzzling and disturbing dramas. Originally published in 1987, the key to Viv Thomas’s new synthesis of the plays is the idea of fracture and dissolution in the universe. From the collapse of ‘degree’ in Troilus and Cressida to the corruption at the heart of innocence in Measure for Measure, to the puzzling status of virtue and valour in All’s Well, the most obvious feature of these plays in their capacity to prompt new questions. In a detailed discussion of each play in turn, the author traces the dominant themes that both distinguish and unite them, and provides numerous insights into the sources, background, texture and morality of the plays.

Comedy and Tragedy--Collected here in one binding are All's Well That Ends Well Measure for Measure and The History of Troilus and Cressida. Collectively they are known as Shakespeare's Problem Plays. While the first two are usually placed with the comedies and the later with the tragedies none of them fit neatly into either classification. Their structure subject matter and resolutions create problems for those who want simple classifications. The term was coined by critic F. S. Boas who believed that these plays each explored a moral dilemma and social problem through their main characters giving the term a layered meaning. O it is excellentTo have a giant's strength;But it is tyrannousTo use it like a giant.

"This is exactly the kind of work, with its synthesis of theory, close reading, and deconstructive performance criticism that many of us in the profession have been looking for." -- Joel B. Altman, University of California, Berkeley "McCandless's book represents an inventive and illuminating account that not only produces a theoretically activated text but also explores a range of options for staging it, turning theoretical into theatrical meanings." -- Barbara Hodgdon, Drake University "The writing is clear, snappy, wonderfully informed with a vivid and experienced theatrical imagination... a book that taught me a good deal about the problem comedies, especially from the vantage point of performance, though the insights into performance are fully and incisively integrated with, and they richly illuminate, formal, thematic, and psychological vantage points on the play." -- Richard P. Wheeler, University of Illinois Composed at a critical moment in English history, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida -- Shakespeare's problem plays -- dramatize a crisis in the sex-gender system. They register a male dread of emasculation and engulfment, a fear of female authority and sexuality. In these plays males identify desire for a female as dangerous and unmanly, females contend and confound traditional femininity. David McCandless's book is a unique and invigorating example of performance criticism that illuminates these difficult, sometimes-overlooked tragicomedies. It is an original and timely contribution to Shakespearean theater scholarship.

The opening chapter traces the history of the term 'problem plays' as applied to Shakespeare and defines it more clearly and precisely than has been done in the past. Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, Antony and Cleopatra are then discussed in separate chapters, not only as problem plays but from various points of view: such matters as themes, structural pattern, character-problems, the play's relation to its sources as well as to other plays in the canon, are all touched upon.

Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure - these are all described by the author as Shakespeare's problem plays. In each of them, the author argues, Shakespeare is deeply interested in speculative thought and in the observance of human nature for their own sake; and each is concerned with men on the edge of manhood and of the harsh experiences which forced them to grow up.

These articles, reprinted from various volumes of Shakespeare Survey, concern three plays which have gradually become appreciated by critics and in the theatre. Since the early years of this century they have been seen as an interrelated group, with a peculiarly twentieth-century appeal. Measure for Measure, concerned as it is with adolescents' first encounters with sex, love and death, has a special appeal for young people; Troilus and Cressida, set in the Trojan War, has been found deeply relevant to our own war-troubled times; and All's Well That Ends Well, sharing these preoccupations, is a necessary companion piece. John Barton, who has directed all three plays, is interviewed in one of the articles, which together illustrate the often heated controversy about the plays. Reviews and photographs of post-war productions at Stratford are also included. The book as a whole is designed as a stimulating introduction to these plays and to conflicting interpretations of them.

Problem Plays' has been an awkward category for those Shakespeare plays that don't fit the conventional groupings. Expanding from the traditional three plays to six, the book argues that they share dramatic structures designed intentionally by Shakespeare to disturb his audience by frustrating their expectations.