To Damascus

Last updated
To Damascus
Harriet Bosse Strindberg To Damascus 1900.jpg
Harriet Bosse as the Lady
in the première production in 1900
Written by August Strindberg
Date premiered19 November 1900 (1900-11-19)
Place premiered Royal Theatre, Stockholm
Original language Swedish
GenreStation drama

To Damascus (Swedish : Till Damaskus), also known as The Road to Damascus, is a trilogy of plays by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. [1] The first two parts were published in 1898, with the third following in 1904. [2] It has been described as "Strindberg's most complex play" and as "his greatest play," due to its "synthesis of a wide variety of myths, symbols and ideas with a profound spiritual analysis in a new dramatic form." [3]

Contents

Writing process

Strindberg began writing Part 1 in January 1898 in France and by 8 March he had completed the manuscript. [4] This marked the first time that Strindberg had written drama in five years. [4] "If you find it good," he wrote to Gustaf af Geijerstam, "chuck it in at the theatre. If you find it impossible, hide it away." [4] At this time, he considered the first part to be complete in itself; he did not originally intend to follow it with two sequels. [4] He began writing Part 2 during the summer of 1898 in Lund and had completed it by the middle of July. [5] The first two parts were published in a single volume in October 1898. [6] Strindberg arranged for a copy to be sent to Henrik Ibsen, describing him as "the Master, from whom he learned much." [7] Strindberg began to write Part 3 in January 1901. [8] It was published in April 1904. [9]

Analysis and criticism

The dramatic structure of the first part utilises a circular, palindromic form of the Medieval "station drama." [4] [10] The protagonist, The Stranger, on his way to an asylum, passes through seven "stations;" having reached the asylum, he then returns to each in reverse order, before arriving at his starting-point on a street corner. [4] Peter Szondi describes this form as a type of subjective theatre in which the classical "unity of action" is replaced with a "unity of the self":

In the "station drama," the hero, whose development is described, is separated in the clearest possible manner from the other figures he meets at the stations along his way. They appear only in terms of his encounters with them and only from his perspective. They are, thus, references to him. [11]

This technique affects radically the way in which time operates in the drama, producing a static and episodic quality to the scenes. [12] It belongs to what came to be known as "I-dramaturgy." [13]

Production history

To Damascus received its première at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm on 19 November 1900, under the direction of Emil Grandinson. [14] [15] August Palme played the Stranger and Harriet Bosse played the Lady. [16] The director hoped to utilise magic lanterns projected onto gauze as a means of tackling the many scene-changes that the play required, though he was forced to abandon the idea in the face of technical difficulties. [17] The production ran for twenty performances. [15]

August Falck directed a production of Part 1 at the Intimate Theatre in Stockholm, which opened on 18 November 1910. [18] The theatre closed soon after under mounting debts. [18] Another production was staged in Ystad in January 1912 as part of Strindberg's 63rd birthday celebrations. [19]

Part 1 received its British première at the Westminster Theatre in London, in a production by the Stage Society that opened on 2 May 1937. [20] It was directed by Carl H. Jaffé and starred Francis James and Wanda Rotha. [20]

All three parts were performed at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, in a production that opened on 3 April 1975. [20] [21] It was directed by Michael Ockrent and David Gothard and starred Roy Marsden and Katherine Schofield. [20]

Related Research Articles

<i>A Dolls House</i> Play by Henrik Ibsen

A Doll's House is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town circa 1879.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">August Strindberg</span> Swedish writer and painter (1849-1912)

Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty plays and more than thirty works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially as a novelist and playwright, but in other countries he is known mostly as a playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Archer (critic)</span> 19th/20th-century Scottish writer and critic

William Archer was a Scottish writer, theatre critic, and English spelling reformer based, for most of his career, in London. He was an early advocate of the plays of Henrik Ibsen, and was an early friend and supporter of Bernard Shaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Hall (director)</span> English theatre, opera and film director (1930–2017)

Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognizing achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.

<i>Peer Gynt</i> Five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen

Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1867. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed Per Gynt, the Norwegian fairy tale on which the play is loosely based, to be rooted in fact, and several of the characters are modelled after Ibsen's own family, notably his parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. He was also generally inspired by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic theatre</span> Theatrical genre

Epic theatre is a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas. Epic theatre is not meant to refer to the scale or the scope of the work, but rather to the form that it takes. Epic theatre emphasizes the audience's perspective and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that deliberately cause them to individually engage in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre is not to encourage an audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moscow Art Theatre</span> Theatre company

The Moscow Art Theatre was a theatre company in Moscow. It was founded in 1898 by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were Russia's dominant form of theatre at the time. The theatre, the first to regularly put on shows implementing Stanislavski's system, proved hugely influential in the acting world and in the development of modern American theatre and drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siri von Essen</span>

Sigrid "Siri" Sofia Matilda Elisabet von Essen was a Swedish-speaking Finnish noblewoman and actress. Her acting career spanned about 15 years, during which time she appeared in a number of plays that the Swedish dramatist and writer August Strindberg wrote specifically for her.

<i>Getting Married</i> (collection) Collection of short stories by August Strindberg

Getting Married is a collection of short stories by the Swedish writer August Strindberg. The first volume was first published on 27 September 1884 and contained twelve stories depicting "twenty marriages of every variety," some of which present women in an egalitarian light. The volume also contained a long preface, in which, in addition to his support for women's rights, Strindberg offered criticisms of the campaign, as well as of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 play A Doll's House. Strindberg finished a second volume of stories, dealing in part with "all the less common forms of 'marriage'" such as "pederasty and lesbianism," in the summer of 1885. After a delay caused by the unwillingness of printers and distributors to handle such a controversial volume, it was published in October 1886. While the first two stories are as sympathetic to women as some of those in the first volume, many border on misogyny. Its preface blamed women for religious persecution, war, and all of history's other misfortunes. Both volumes were written at a time when Strindberg was still married to Siri von Essen, though the publication of the second volume had a disastrous effect on their marriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swedish Theatre (Stockholm)</span>

The Swedish Theatre in Stockholm was, at the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden's largest dramatic theatre. It was located on Blasieholmen in central Stockholm. During its years in use, from 1875 to 1925, it was often considered as Sweden's foremost national theatre ).

Non-Aristotelian drama, or the 'epic form' of the drama, is a kind of play whose dramaturgical structure departs from the features of classical tragedy in favour of the features of the epic, as defined in each case by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in his Poetics

The Mission: Memory of a Revolution, also known as The Task, is a postmodern drama by the German playwright Heiner Müller. The play was written and first published in 1979. Müller and his wife Ginka Cholakova co-directed its first theatrical production in 1980, at the intimate 'Theatre im 3.Stock' studio space of the Volksbühne in Berlin. Müller also directed a full-house production in 1982 at the Bochum Theatre in West Germany.

Baron Casper Gustaf Kenneth Wrede af Elimä, known as Caspar Wrede, was a Finnish theatre and film director. He was long active in the English theatre, co-founding the Royal Exchange theatre company in Manchester.

<i>The Father</i> (Strindberg play)

The Father is a naturalistic tragedy by Swedish playwright August Strindberg, written in 1887. It is about the struggle between parents over the future of their child; resulting in the mother, using her cunning manipulative skills, subduing and finally destroying the father.

Per Egil Törnqvist was Professor Emeritus of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Amsterdam and an academic literary critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naturalism (theatre)</span>

Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. Interest in naturalism especially flourished with the French playwrights of the time, but the most successful example is Strindberg's play Miss Julie, which was written with the intention to abide by both his own particular version of naturalism, and also the version described by the French novelist and literary theoretician, Emile Zola.

Michael Leverson Meyer was an English translator, biographer, journalist and dramatist who specialised in Scandinavian literature.

<i>Creditors</i> (play) Play written by A. Strindberg

Creditors is a naturalistic tragicomedy by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It was written in Swedish during August and September 1888 in Denmark. It was first published in Danish in February 1889 and appeared in Swedish in 1890. It premiered at the Dagmar Theatre in Copenhagen in March 1889. It is seen as one of Strindberg's most powerful plays. Strindberg himself, writing in 1892, described it as his "most mature work."

Michael Elliott, OBE was an English theatre and television director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Théâtre de Paris</span>

The Théâtre de Paris is a theatre located at 15, rue Blanche in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. It includes a second smaller venue, the Petit Théâtre de Paris.

References

  1. ↑ Meyer (1991, 179).
  2. ↑ Meyer (1985, 385, 448).
  3. ↑ Ward (1980, 135, 171).
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Meyer (1985, 374).
  5. ↑ Meyer (1985, 382).
  6. ↑ Meyer (1985, 385).
  7. ↑ Meyer (1985, 386).
  8. ↑ Meyer (1985, 415).
  9. ↑ Meyer (1985, 448).
  10. ↑ Szondi (1965, 25).
  11. ↑ Szondi (1965, 26).
  12. ↑ Szondi (1965, 26–7).
  13. ↑ Szondi (1965, 22).
  14. ↑ Meyer (1985), 409–10.
  15. 1 2 Meyer (1991b, 187).
  16. ↑ Meyer (1985, 404).
  17. ↑ Meyer (1985, 482).
  18. 1 2 Meyer (1985, 543–4).
  19. ↑ Meyer (1985), 560–1.
  20. 1 2 3 4 Meyer (1991b, 188).
  21. ↑ Meyer (1985), 383.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.