在場的問題，缺席的答案：重探莎士比亞「問題劇」

A Presence of Questions, An Absence of Answers: Reinvestigating Shakespeare’s Problem Plays

可以說莎士比亞的每齣戲，不管悲劇、喜劇抑或歷史劇，都不難從中發現重重破綻和疏漏之處，也是所謂的「問題」，可是卻不是他的每一個文本都可以被叫做「問題劇」。我希望以更宏闊且全面的視野，挖掘問題劇在總體體質、結構、美學、意識型態上的特殊處，測繪四百年來有如「高懸公案」的「莎士比亞問題劇」，踩踏在哪些「界限邊緣」？又都發生（甚而跟著繁衍）了什麼「問題」？並進一步思索，寫出這樣的劇本，不管就藝術性抑或哲理性論之，是劇作家的「消極倒退」？還是，隱匿藏身在層層「問題」蓋覆間，所謂的不清不楚、模稜兩可，不過是作為「我們時代的靈魂與良知」的詩人的謀略與煙霧彈，裂縫罅隙中閃現的是他更激進挑釁的觀點視角，與更狡猾曖昧的立場姿態？順此猜測往下假設，由是莎士比亞問題劇裡的「熱鬧」與「門道」，都在於「危險」四伏？我的文章將以《威尼斯商人》、《結局好萬事好》、《自作自受》三個文本為主要分析對象和討論個案，來重新探究「莎士比亞問題劇」這個命題的成立。

In Taiwan, for decades, Shakespeare’s problem plays had relatively not gotten much attention from scholars, as they should have deserved (despite of the fact that stellar stage productions did come about within these few years). Plays like Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure (arguably together with The Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s Tale, and Timon of Athens) had hardly been studied as a “group,” or, a “corpus” under the definition of a specific category “problem plays.” This is the major reason that I would like to further examine on the matter of this subject. To begin with, I will give an overall review on the Western scholarships, relevant to the topic, in an attempt to exhibit how problem plays had been sorted through and discussed for a century. In addition to his tragedy, comedy, and historical chronicle play, Shakespeare’s problem play had emerged as a valid classification which I deem a later invention. Much likely the idea was, in part, “inspired” by the blossoming of naturalism and social realism in theatre in the late 19th century. I will make a comparison between the concepts and practices of “typical” social problem plays and “atypical,” idiosyncratic Shakespearean problem plays, trying to re-contextualize Shakespeare by a rather “modernist” taste, out of which the idea took shape. In a “(post) modern” reflection, problem plays were “ideologically” and “aesthetically” controversial and problematic, thereby theoretically/culturally dialectic and ambiguous. In my analysis from the perspectives of the reception of production history and a critical reading of the texts themselves, including dramatic structure, genre, thematic issue, and theoretical interpretation, I will display that there were indeed a certain number of attributes, which ended up marking those what we called problem plays essentially Shakespearean.