August Strindberg (1849–1912)

As Disturbing As Ever
A review of the Dover Thrift Edition eBook (March 1, 2012) of the English language translation by [author:Edwin Björkman|2933384] (first published in [book:Plays by August Strindberg, Second series|18923700] (1913)) from the original Swedish language playscript [book:Fröken Julie|325929] (1888).

I had never seen or read Miss Julie previously but had a general sense that it was considered a classic of modern theatre, although Strindberg himself was by all reports a show more particularly nasty man and an unrepentant misogynist. Seeing that there was a modern day adaptation, [author:Polly Stenham|2755461]'s [book:Julie: After Strindberg|41962173] (2018) playing in Toronto this week I decided to read both the original and the adaptation in order to discover what it was all about.

Without getting too spoilery, this was totally shocking and cringeworthy in its depiction of the title character and her release of sexual inhibition with her father the Count's manservant leading to a sort of crazed madness and her fatal end. Strindberg subtitled it a naturalistic tragedy and provides a lengthy introduction / manifesto (about 25% of the book) stating his vision of a new theatrical realism.

It can be played as a survival of the fittest, a war between the sexes, a battle between the classes or as a battle between the colonizers/imperialists and the colonized/subjugated. It is difficult to see how it could have a feminist interpretation unless you reverse-gendered the roles. Oddly, many synopses that I read describe it as Julie seducing Jean with her flirtations but it seemed the complete reverse to me with Jean's pleadings of an early childhood crush and an alcohol driven manipulation to get Julie into his bedroom.

It is hard to imagine this being sold on stage in the present day, so even with Stenham's adaptation yet to be seen, I'm feeling rather hesitant about it now.

It is a 3 rating more for its historical significance, rather than for any of its content.

Trivia and Links
Miss Julie is in the Public Domain in its original Swedish and its early English language translations. Read the Swedish language original here and read the 1913 English translation at Project Gutenberg here (Miss Julie is the 2nd play in the book).

I was curious about the photo used for this Dover Thrift edition cover. Was it some actress who had played the title role sometime in the past? An image search via TinEye revealed that it was Miss Békássy, Young Feminist president photographed at the International Woman Suffrage Congress, Budapest, 1913. So, no tie-in to the theatre at all. show less

This volume of Elizabeth Sprigge's Strindberg translations is not as solid as the first, but it does have both parts of "The Dance of Death," which I think MIGHT be Strindberg's greatest play.

I don't know how to say this in a more mature critical fashion, but for me Strindberg was at his best when he allowed himself to go OUT OF HIS MIND, and just pull out every last stupid stop of taste and logic. In "The Dance of Death" we start with what seems to be a naturalistic character study of show more complicated relationships, and proceed from there into OH MY WTF IS THIS with characters doing ludicrous Hussar dances in boots (and then collapsing on the floor) and throwing each other down and biting each other on the necks. Is it ridiculous? Probably. But it's also unforgettable, and I would LOVE to see it staged with great actors -- they'd need to be great to pull this monster off.

Imagine something that starts out like a dark G. B. Shaw play that is then swallowed by a Bosch painting on the wall that grows and swallows everyone. That's "The Dance of Death." show less

An admittedly great writer writing from within the depths of psychosis. And I'm not exaggerating. He rants about how evil feminists have driven him from his homeland, tries to make gold (literally), is convinced that everyone up to and including the devil himself is after him, describes how electric fields come from out of nowhere to tear him apart, how invisible forces push over his absinthe glass, how signs appear everywhere and he sees maps of cities he's yet to visit in the useless show more flakes of mineral that refuse to obey his will and turn into gold...

...he flees every hotel, runs from Paris to Lund to Berlin to Graz, he reads Swedenborg, he reads Nietzsche, he reads Balzac, he reads the OT, he quotes Ezekiel 25 120 years before Samuel L Jackson did...

...friends contact him, begging him not to throw his life away on a suicide mission to the North pole, and he explains in vain that that's his nephew in the papers...

...basically, substitute "electricity" for "chemtrails" and he'd feel right at home in the darker corners of Reddit.

And yet, there's something to it. His insistance that this is August Strindberg writing, this is not fiction, this is exactly what he's going through and you're welcome to compare it to his diaries if you want. His refusal both to back down from his earlier ideas, and his refusal to NOT change. Those magnificent last few chapters when he goes through his crisis, not out of it. The older Strindberg is a deeply unpleasant person, and Inferno - much like Confessions of a Fool - a deeply unpleasant book. But as fin-de-siecle madness and timeless manpain goes, it's hard to deny the power of it. show less

At this distance it is difficult for me to be anything like objective about this book, which was my introduction to the mad Swede August Strindberg, who would go on to have a ... well, let's just call it an impress, on my life for some time. If you know anything about Strindberg the person, you know that this is not necessarily a healthful thing.

The plays, though ... are by turns shocking, "naturalistic" (with S you have to put that word in quotes because while he pays lip service to show more naturalism, everything is always a bit more ... intense than that), fevered, dream-like and confounding. I will never forget my first encounters with "A Dream Play" or "The Ghost Sonata." Because I don't read Swedish, I can't comment on the quality of Sprigge's translations, though they always read well to my mind. Some of these may seem more successful as experiments than finished works to you, but ... what experiments!

The second Sprigge volume is also good, especially because it contains both parts of "The Dance of Death," which is NUTS. show less