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Shakespeare’s comedies revolve around marriage and family, evolving from bawdy humor to dark humor. The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night feature mistaken identity, Two Gentlemen of Verona introduces women dressing as men, and The Taming of the Shrew portrays a strong woman. Love’s Labor’s Lost and The Merry Wives of Windsor are bawdy, while A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It are “green world” shows. Much Ado About Nothing has a dual love story, and The Merchant of Venice has a dramatic storyline involving Shylock. All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure are classified as black humor and “problem dramas.”
William Shakespeare’s plays were the reason for his initial success in London. Comedies often revolve around marriage and family matters and have happy endings. Shakespeare’s plays evolved over the course of his career, losing much of the bawdy humor of his early works and even approaching dark or black humor in his later plays.
The Comedy of Errors is believed to be Shakespeare’s first play, written around 1592. The play features a separate set of identical twin nobles, who have servants who are also a separate set of identical twins. The play is one of Shakespeare’s shortest and relies heavily on sight gags of mistaken identity, a very common device in Shakespeare’s plays. The next play, Twelfth Night, similarly features twins, but is even more confusing in that one twin is a boy and the other a girl.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, has the smallest cast of any Shakespeare play, and is the first of Shakespeare’s plays to introduce another common theme, women dressing as men. In the show, Julia dresses as a boy and disguises herself as her boyfriend’s page, to follow him to Milan. Unfortunately, she discovers that she has been cheating on her and is trying to win the love of Silvia, whom her best friend also loves about her. Luckily everything works out in the end, with Julia taking back her unfaithful lover while Silvia prefers her best friend.
A favorite play of modern audiences is The Taming of the Shrew, which has been played many times on stage and screen. Kate, a formidable and angry woman, is furiously married to Petruchio, who is certain he can tame her. Despite its somewhat anti-feminine tone, the play is often interpreted in a feminist vein, portraying Petruchio as the only man who understands and respects Kate’s strength.
Love’s Labor’s Lost is the most lewd of Shakespeare’s plays, with a very simple premise: three young men vow to devote themselves to study and avoid all female contact for three years. Predictably, none of them are able to keep away from temptation for any length of time. Critics believe Shakespeare may have written a sequel to this play, but the text has not survived.
An equally bawdy play is The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which a fat knight named Falstaff is consumed with desire by two housewives who decide to play tricks on him. The play is significant in its use of Falstaff, which previously appeared in two historical plays, Henry IV, Parts I and II. Falstaff’s appearance is somewhat surprising as the earliest plays were set in the 14th century, whereas The Merry Wives of Windsor takes place in the early 17th century.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It are both called “green world” shows. In them, the young heroes must venture into a wild and unconventional nearby forest, before emerging with their corrected future mate and bringing society back into balance. Both games have been hugely popular throughout history, on stage and screen.
Considered by some to be the funniest of Shakespeare’s comedies, Much Ado About Nothing presents a dual love story, perhaps inspired by the serial comedies of the Italian Commedia dell’arte form. Beatrice and Benedict, despite their constant battles of wits with each other, must unite to save Hero and Claudio’s marriage after a plot puts their marriage in jeopardy.
The Merchant of Venice is traditionally classified as a comedy, but is most often remembered for its dramatic storyline involving Shylock of Venice. The play is considered a comedy as it ends happily rather than tragically. Some scholars argue that the play is best described as an early attempt at tragicomedy, a genre to which Shakespeare would return later in his career.
Shakespeare’s last two plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure are sometimes classified as black humour. Though they end in a wedding, like most of Shakespeare’s plays, audiences question whether the marriages are suitable and the couples especially happy. These two dramas are rarely performed and often grouped under the title “problem dramas”.
