11 - Strindberg in the theatre

Summary

Paradoxically, although the profound influence of August Strindberg on both modernist and postmodernist theatre is generally accepted as a critical truism, one of the sturdiest myths that has attached itself to Strindberg's work has been the notion that his plays - particularly the great experimental masterpieces of his post-Inferno period - are somehow 'unperformable'. Nothing could be farther from the truth, however, for despite the undeniable difficulties they present and the innovative thinking they demand in production, works such as A Dream Play, To Damascus and The Ghost Sonata have never lost their grip on the imaginations of directors, actors and designers. This enduring influence is, in turn, linked to the crucial effect that this writer's allusive (and elusive) dramaturgical method has had on the changing nature of the theatrical experience and the spectator's relationship to it.

For, although Miss Julie is probably still the play most commonly associated with Strindberg's name, the naturalist revolution it helped to ferment soon ceased to hold the playwright's interest. By the end of the 1890s he had become convinced that his ideal of a comprehensive revitalization of the theatre could only be achieved through the complete rejection of a conventional view of stage illusion and dramatic construction that no longer adequately expressed the mystical and visionary aspects of life that, to an increasing extent, he came to regard as the true fabric of reality. Even by the time Miss Julie had reached Paris and the Théâtre Libre in 1893, Strindberg himself had stopped writing plays altogether.