“The Tempest” at the Pittsburgh Public Theater

The Pittsburgh Tatler: A couple of decades ago my then-colleague Jan Hagens introduced me to a genre categorization that was new to me: the “drama of reconciliation.” His primary focus was German drama, but he also placed in this category a number of Shakespearean plays – including most of the so-called “problem plays” – that refused to sit neatly within the genres of tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy. In particular he pointed out that the two oddest of Shakespeare’s plays – A Winter’s Tale and The Tempest – suddenly make new sense when you think of them as dramas of reconciliation; they each map the challenges (and to a certain extent the sheer impossibility) of moving beyond grievance and harm to atonement and forgiveness.