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Trivial events-lights going down, curtain rising-are explained as if they are arcane rituals. While the play is going on, an analyst, in a suitably academic setting, provides a breathless running commentary describing theatregoers as if they are a lost tribe discovered in the Amazon rather than folks having a night out. The irony being that such people needed to have their consciences pricked by watching a play because they were isolated from the ‘real’ world and never endured actual hardship. Nope, such plays appeared in the 19th century allowing authors to explore their social consciences by exposing audiences to controversial social issues.īehind the Beyond, adapted by Brian Cano from a satirical essay by Stephen Leacock, does not miss the central point of the satire: all involved-authors, actors and audiences-are from the upper class so inevitably the plays are set in a refined background among the elite and reflect their concerns. Had always assumed the term ‘problem play’ described the likes of Measure for Measure which were not funny enough to be comedies or sufficiently grim to be tragedies. There are perils to publicly reviewing plays when one has never studied drama.