Strindberg and Modernist Theatre
Post-Inferno Drama on the Stage

This book offers an analysis of Strindberg's major expressionist works in performance.

Frederick J. Marker (Author), Lise-Lone Marker (Author)

9780521623773, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 November 2002

190 pages, 30 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.43 kg

"Frederick and Lise-Lone Marker excel at what they do: they create living histories of individual performances. They are indeed so good at what they do that it is probably caviling to note that they do not succeed at proving that "these plays...have had a compelling impact on modernist and postmodernist theatre and theatrical theory" (ix). Nonetheless, Strindberg and Modernist Theatre stands as an important contribution to an understanding of Strindberg's plays as theater." Scandinavian Studies, Marilyn Johns Blackwell, Ohio State University

Despite the profound influence exerted by August Strindberg on the development of modernist theatre and drama, the myth persisted that his plays - particularly such later works as A Dream Play, To Damascus, and The Ghost Sonata - are somehow 'unperformable'. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as this book sets out to demonstrate by providing a detailed performance analysis of the major works created after the period of personal crisis which Strindberg called his Inferno. Ranging from the early productions of Max Reinhardt and Olof Molander to the reinterpretations of Robert Lepage, Robert Wilson and Ingmar Bergman in our own day, this study explores the crucial impact that this writer's allusive (and elusive) method of playwriting has had on the changing nature of the theatrical experience. Each chapter ends with a section devoted to innovative Strindberg performances on the contemporary stage.

List of illustrations
Preface
1. Before Inferno: Strindberg and nineteenth-century theatre
2. Toward a new theatre: To Damascus
3. A theatre of dreams: A Dream Play
4. Chamber theatre: The Ghost Sonata
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]