by A.R. Gurney Jr.
The Problem has two characters: The Husband and The Wife. Both are in their thirties.
All the action takes place in the simple study room of their home.
The play begins with the Wife revealing her now pregnant belly to her husband. The Husband seems strangely unalarmed until the Wife reveals that the child may not be the product of her and him, but that of her and a black man. Because she and her husband have not made love in nearly five years, she is convinced the child will be black or mulatto. Later the Husband calmly admits that he has been disguising himself as the black man, making love to her and deceiving her for the past five years. The Wife then states that she knew it was her husband disguised all along and after one night of love making, replaced herself with a woman who looked identical to her. She goes on to explain that every night while her disguised husband and her decoy were making love, she would sneak out into the ghetto and offer herself as an "ecstatic white sacrifice to anyone with an income of less than five thousand." This declaration turns her husband on like no other. The pair both become aroused and the Husband pops his wife's pregnant belly with his pipe cleaner. After her belly deflates we learn that the couple has been engaged in some role-playing foreplay the entire time. The Husband, now acting like Tarzan, proceeds to carry his wife offstage as she giggles and kicks pretending to be Jane.
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