Strindberg and Modernist Theatre: Post-Inferno Drama on the Stage

Scandinavian Review, Summer 2003

Strindberg and Modernist Theatre: Post-Inferno Drama on the Stage

By Frederick J. Marker and Lise-Lone Marker

Cambridge University Press, New York, N.Y., 2003

176 pages, hardcover $55

The Markers are professors emeriti of English and Drama, and Theatrical History, respectively, at the University of Toronto, Canada. This book aims to refute the persistent myth that August Strindberg's plays-notably such later works as A Dream Play, To Damascus and The Ghost Sonata, are somehow unperformable. It provides, for the first time in English, a detailed performance analysis of the major works created after the psychic upheaval Strindberg called his "inferno." This study explores the crucial impact that the writer's allusive and elusive method of play writing 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.