uping of Shakespearean works: the tragedies.In contemporary theatre, a tragedy generally includes death and destruction, a romance gone horribly wrong, the hero or heroines total collapse, or any combination thereof. It puts the audience in a depressed, angry, or at least contemplative mood. In some ways, the Shakespearean tragedy does fit this mold: there is almost always an excess of dead people, and you can usually be sure you wont laugh the theatre laughing. Still there is some trouble in grouping all of Shakespeares tragedies under that title. In general, the tragedy evokes a feeling of great loss bad things happening to good people, a fallen hero. Yet in several of Shakespeares tragedies, bad things only happen to the bad people. Titus for one, is a play of continuous blood and gore, with leading characters falling one after the other. The problem is, the audience never really cares that all these people are keeling over because theyre all pretty horrible people. Titus kills his own son, Tamora is an evil wench, Aaron is pure evil and Saturninus is a pompous ass; in fact, the only survivors of the play, Marcus and Lucius, are the only non-despicable characters. Whats so tragic about contemptible people dying?Shakespeares tragedies are easier to sort than are his comedies: if its got an excess of body parts and blood, nine times out of ten its going to be a tragedy. However, the greater underlying problem of his comedy and tragedy is that the titles simply dont fit the plays theyre meant for by todays standards. People today believe that a comedy is funny, a tragedy is sad: these rules simply dont hold true for Shakespeares works....
