- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
These final lines of the play bring the Prozorovs’ sufferings to an ambiguous close: Olga is stuck in an unwanted job; Masha has said goodbye to her true love; and Irina’s fiancé has just been killed in a duel. Olga admits that life has an inescapable futility; the best they can hope for is that their struggles will benefit future generations. Yet the raucous cheer of the retreating army band seems to mock whatever comfort they might draw from this. In the end, Olga suggests, it’s impossible for people to know why they suffer, no matter how they try to…