The Serious Game. Ingmar Bergman As Stage Director - Egil Törnqvist (2016)

THE SERIOUS GAME
Ingmar Bergman as Stage Director EGIL TÖRNQVIST

The Serious Game
The Serious Game
Ingmar Bergman as Stage Director
Egil Törnqvist
Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Ingmar Bergman directs Lena Endre as Elizabeth and Mikael Persbrandt
as Leicester in Friedrich von Schiller’s Maria Stuart (Mary Stuart) at Dramaten in Stockholm
2000. Photo: Bengt Wanselius.
Cover design: Sander Pinkse Boekproducties

Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout
Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by
the University of Chicago Press.
isbn 978 90 8964 678 1

e-isbn 978 90 4852 367 2
doi 10.5117/9789089646781
nur 670
© E. Törnqvist / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2015
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
Egil Törnqvist
1932-2015
The internationally renowned Strindberg and Bergman scholar Egil Törn-

qvist, professor emeritus at the University of Amsterdam, passed away on
March 9, 2015 after a short illness.
Törnqvist was born on December 19, 1932 in Uppsala, where he also began
his academic studies. After completing his B.A. and M.A. degrees he be-
came a lecturer in Swedish at Harvard University (1957-1958). Returning
to Uppsala he continued his graduate work and completed an advanced
degree (fil.lic.) in 1962. During the next several years (1963-1969) he served
as research assistant in Drama Studies and defended his doctoral thesis on
Eugene O’Neill in 1968, which led to an assistant professorship in Literature/
Drama Studies at his alma mater. In the following year (1969) he began a
long academic career as Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University
of Amsterdam. He remained in Amsterdam until his death and considered
the city and its academic environment his real domicile.
Egil Törnqvist focussed much of his research on August Strindberg as a

dramatist and on the film and theatre productions of Ingmar Bergman.
He established a broad international network in these academic fields. He
was the main organizer of the eight Strindberg Conference in Amsterdam
in 1986 and became an esteemed contributor to such scholarly journals as
Strindbergiana, Scandinavica, Scandinavian Studies, Theatre Studies and
Modern Drama. Fluent in Swedish, English and Dutch, Törnqvist lectured
frequently at international conferences and at a number of European and
American universities. Many of his articles were translated into Italian,
Polish, Russian and Czech. Among his very large production of book-length
works, many of them published by Amsterdam University Press, are the
following: Strindberg’s Miss Julie: A Play and its Transpositions (with Barry
Jacobs), 1988; Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs, 1995;
Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata: From Text to Performance, 2000; Strindberg
on Drama and Theatre (with Birgitta Steene), 2007. Shortly before his death,
Törnqvist completed the current AUP volume on Ingmar Bergman’s stage
productions.
For his extensive research, Egil Törnqvist was awarded the Swedish Strind-
berg Prize in 2004. The award committee’s motivation was that in using the
world as his arena “Egil Törnqvist made clear the uniqueness of Strindberg’s
dramas and their impact on playwrights and filmmakers in our time.”
Birgitta Steene
Professor emerita in cinema studies and Scandinavian literature at the
University of Washington.
Contents
Preface 9
1. B & Co. 13
2. William Shakespeare, King Lear 25
3. August Strindberg, Miss Julie 39
4. August Strindberg, A Dream Play 55
5. William Shakespeare, Hamlet 69
6. Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night 87
7. Yukio Mishima, Madame de Sade 101
8. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House 115
9. Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt 129
10. William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale 143
11. J.B.P. Molière, The Misanthrope 157
12. Euripides, The Bacchae 171
13. August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata 183
14. Friedrich von Schiller, Mary Stuart 195
15. Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts 209
16. The Serious Game 223

Production Data 237
Bibliography 253
DVD list 259
Index 263
Preface
Film is an international medium, theatre a national one. As a film director,

Ingmar Bergman (hereafter B) is world-famous; as a stage director he is little
known outside his own country. Even if some of B’s stage productions have
been seen not only in Sweden but also abroad, the number of people attend-
ing them was very limited compared to the number that has attended his
films. Moreover, before the invention of supertexts a non-Swedish theatre
audience was forced either to listen to a language they did not understand
or listen to an undramatic translation via earphones.
The media dichotomy is reflected in the disproportionate attention that
has been devoted to B as a film and as a stage director. While there are
by now some fifty books on B as a film director, only a handful concern
themselves with his work in the theatre. And yet his 171 stage productions
by far outnumber his 77 film and TV productions.
When Henrik Sjögren published his book Ingmar Bergman på teatern
in 1968, it was the first time a survey was given of B’s stage productions.
This was followed in 2002 by his Lek och raseri: Ingmar Bergman’s teater
1938-2002, covering B’s total stage career. Himself a theatre critic, Sjögren’s
analyses are based partly on his own impressions of the performances and
partly, and more extensively, on impressions by various, mostly Swedish,
theatre critics. In addition, both books contain dialogues with B on the
various productions. In 1982, Lise-Lone and Frederick J. Marker published
their Ingmar Bergman: Four Decades in the Theater, which was then revised,
expanded and published ten years later under the title Ingmar Bergman:
A Life in the Theater. Both books focus on Molière, Ibsen, and Strindberg
productions. And both contain conversations with B on theatre. Extremely
useful is Birgitta Steene’s well-documented survey “Ingmar Bergman in
the Theatre” (455-762) in her extensive Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide
(2005).
Unlike Sjögren and the Markers, my analyses are largely based on my
own impressions both of the live and the video-recorded presentations. The
analyses often relate the visual elements to the dialogue, frequently in the
form of transcriptions of directorially rewarding passages. This I consider
essential, since a description of merely the visual and acoustic aspects and
not the connected verbal ones easily remains vague. Comments on B as a
stage director in the introductory chapter “B & Co.” rely to some extent on
impressions during my attendance of B’s rehearsals of his third production
of Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata in the fall of 1972.
10 The Serious Game
Much could be said about the process leading to the finished play produc-
tions. In the present book, I limit myself to end results and let the proof be
in the pudding.
Another limitation is the restriction to fourteen of B’s late productions, all
of them from 1984 to 2002, all of them based on classical dramas. The choice
of late productions was natural for several reasons. Not only was B now an
exceedingly experienced director, often referred to as maestro. He had also,
after a less successful period at the Residenztheater in Munich, returned to
what he called the paternal house, the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm,
commonly known as Dramaten, where all his subsequent stage performances
took place in his own native tongue. He had stopped directing films. Last
but not least, from this period several relatively good video recordings of the
stage performances are available. The fact that all the productions discussed
here are based on classical dramas has the advantage that the texts are easily
available both in the original language and in translation.
The fourteen video recordings, by now transmitted to dvd, are all in
colour. The oldest of them, King Lear, exists in two versions, one in black-
and-white, with a fixed camera showing the whole stage, and another in
colour with a movable camera showing the actors in medium shots and
close-ups. The former version is unable to show mimicry, small gestures
and objects. The latter does not inform us about what the rest of the stage
looks like. The two versions are in other words complementary. This is
an ideal situation and it is regrettable that it has not been followed up in
later recordings. In the single versions bestowed on them we find variation
between long shots, showing the whole stage, medium shots and, occasion-
ally, close-ups. What we get is something between the objectivity of the
theatre and the subjectivity of the film.
The two-dimensionality of the video may make it difficult to assess
actors’ movements in relation to the stage depth (Heed, 1989: 99). Projections
and dark areas may be difficult to discern. But the possibility of stopping,
rewinding, and repeating images and sequences in the recordings is an
enormous asset, although this possibility violates “the dictate of the tem-
poral uniqueness of the theatre event” (Pavis, 1982: 123).
As appears from the Production Data (p. 237), most of the recordings took
place before opening night, but a few took place after it. In either case, the
recorded version may differ from that of the opening night, witnessed by
the reviewers. In the versions of Peer Gynt and The Bacchae the acting is
here and there interrupted by instructions from B.
Apart from the recordings, I was able to study the production scripts,
that is, the scripts of the version-to-be-played handled by the actors as
Preface 11
well as almost all of B’s prompt scripts. In addition to this material, the
reviews, usually appearing the day after the opening night (and therefore
here undated), have provided helpful insights and corroborations.
Although stage productions are the result of team work where actors play
a crucial part, I have refrained from mentioning actors’ names – they can
all be found in the section on Production Data at the end – in order not to
encumber the reading and in the awareness that most of these names are
unknown to a non-Swedish audience. This should not be seen as a sign of
playing down the actors’ contributions which, as already mentioned, were
crucial. As the title of my introductory chapter, B & Co., indicates the letter B
should frequently be spelled out “B as leader of the production team.”
A theatre performance sooner or later belongs to the past. When theatre
critics use present tense in their reviews, it is because the performance is
still running, probably will stay on for some time, and consequently can be
attended by the readers of the review in question. For the theatre historian
it is more natural to use past tense – the tense used here – for performances
that are passed and gone. The existence of recordings of performances
on video/dvd cannot change the fact that these are based on live, that is,
non-repeatable theatrical events.
For stage directions, I use italics throughout. Speaker labels and character
designations are put in roman low-case capitals. References to reviews in
the running text lack dates since it can be assumed that all reviews have
appeared shortly after the premiere, the date of which is given in the list
of production data.
In the productions examined here Euripides’ Greek, Shakespeare’s
English, Molière’s French, and Schiller’s German were usually rather freely
rendered into Swedish. As a result the Swedish target texts often deviate
considerably from the source texts. All quotations from the productions
are in my own English rendering of the Swedish texts.
A substantial part of this book has appeared earlier. Chapter 3 relies
partly on pp. 163-85 in mine and Barry Jacobs’ Strindberg’s Miss Julie: A
Play and Its Transpositions, (Norwich: Norvik Press, 1988). Chapter 6 was
originally published as “Ingmar Bergman Directs Long Day’s Journey into
Night” in New Theatre Quarterly, V: 20, 1989, and as “Proxemics on Page
and Stage: O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night – and Bergman’s” in
North-West Passage (Torino), 5, 2008. Short sections of Chapters 7 and 12
earlier appeared as “Mishima’s Madame de Sade on Stage and on Television”
and “Euripides’ The Bacchae as Opera, Television Opera, and Stage Play”
in Bergman’s Muses: Æsthetic Versatility in Film, Theatre, Television and
Radio, (Jefferson, NC/London: McFarland, 2003). Chapter 8 is partly based on
12 The Serious Game
“Ingmar Bergman’s Doll’s Houses,” Scandinavica, 30:1, May 1991. Chapter 10

owes much to “Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale” in my Between Stage and
Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
1995). Chapter 13 appeared as “Ingmar Bergman’s fjärde Spöksonat” in Strind-
bergiana, 16, ed. Birgitta Steene, (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2001). Chapter 15 was
earlier published as “Ingmar Bergman’s Gengångare” in Nordisk Tidskrift,
82:4, 2006. All these publications have here been thoroughly revised.
For invaluable assistance I am much indebted to Dr. Dag Kronlund,
librarian at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, and his assistant
Christine Sundberg, as well as to Dr. Jan Holmberg, head of the Ingmar
Bergman Foundation in Stockholm.
1. B & Co.
Most directors have opted for one or a few artistic media: theatre, film, radio,
television, opera. B opted for them all. But two of them took precedence:
theatre and film. His comparison of the former to his wife, the latter to
his mistress, has become legendary. There was always a close connection
between the two, between his work for the stage and his work for the screen:
My films are only a distillation of what I do in the theatre. Theatre work

is sixty percent.... Not even considering the connection between The
Seventh Seal and my production of Ur-Faust (although they came about
in the reverse order). Not even considering the connection between The
Face [The Magician in the U.S.] and my production of Six Characters in
Search of an Author in Malmö. (B in Sjöman, 1963: 102)
Seven years later, he declared: “Between my job at the theater and my job
in the film studio it has always been a very short step indeed. Sometimes it
has paid off, and sometimes it has been a drawback. But it has always been
a short step between” (B, 1973: 99).
As a stage director B was living with a particular play in heart and mind
for long periods. Many of these plays left traces in the films. The Seventh Seal
grew out of a play, Wood Painting. Smiles of a Summer Night “is constructed
like a piece by Marivaux – in the classical 18th century manner” (B, 1973:
66f.). Through a Glass Darkly is “a surreptitious stage-play” (ib. 163). Winter
Light took shape in his mind as “a medieval play” (B, 1994b: 258). B himself
made a stage version of his TV series Scenes from a Marriage and many of
his films have later been adapted into stage plays.
As a film maker, Marianne Höök claimed, B “is always primarily the
man of the theater who distrusts technical shortcuts, relying solely on the
human being and the spoken word” (Cowie, 1992: 300). There is much to
be said for the view that “no other film director after the breakthrough of
the sound film has been so influenced by the theatre” (Zern, 1993: 59). B’s
theatrical orientation is further corroborated by his frequent use of stage
or stage-like performances in his films (Koskinen, 1993: 155-262).
When we reverse the picture and look at cinematic qualities in B’s
stage productions, we may think of such an obvious phenomenon as the
use of projections in the productions of A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and The
Ghost Sonata. But we may also think of the tendency to replace a firm act
structure with a looser scene structure. We may think of the added initial
14 The Serious Game
action preceding the action proper; compare the use of pre-title sequences
in screen drama. We may think of the focussing on the characters’ faces
through positioning and lighting. Or of the use of slow-motion or frozen
movements on the stage. Last but not least, B’s experience from film direc-
tion undoubtedly sharpened his awareness of how to direct “the audience’s
attention […] to certain circumstances on the stage” (B in Sjögren, 1968: 293).
Lighting has, due to the fast technical development, become an exceed-
ingly important element in stage performances. B’s experience as a film
director helped to make him aware of the potentials of light, also in the
theatre. Referring to Sven Nykvist, he once told an interviewer: “Our com-
mon passion – and I feel this even on the stage – is to create light: light and
faces surrounded by shadows. This is what fascinates me!” (Kaminsky, 1975:
129f.) In another interview, he gave an illuminating example: “The actors’
relation to the stage is also a part of the rhythm of the performance, and
if you change the angle at which the light strikes the stage, you achieve a
completely new rhythm” (B in Marker/Marker, 1992: 17).
In B’s work dream and reality were closely interwoven and the theatre
– this home of dreams – frequently became a metaphor for this world of
illusions. The theatre family in Fanny and Alexander is named Ekdahl in
recognition of the fact that, like Ibsen’s Ekdal family in The Wild Duck,
they live by illusions. Emilie Ekdahl’s exit from the theatre and return to
it – she has a predecessor in Elisabet Vogler in Persona – is paradigmatic for
her ambivalent attitude to the house of illusions and to the reality outside
that is so characteristic of many of B’s figures as well as of their creator.1
B was a director already in the nursery, where he staged plays in his
puppet theatre. “I leant over my toy theatre,” he once said, “my games mak-
ing me ruler of the stage, my imagination populating it” (B, 1989: 20); the
description is that of an omnipotent director. B’s debut as a stage director
in the proper sense took place in 1938 when he was 20. At about the same
time he started writing fiction, mostly plays. In the 1940s a few of them
were published and produced, some directed by B himself. One of them,
Jack Among the Actors, deals with a troupe of actors who are treated like
puppets by their autocratic director. “There was a frustrated dramatist in
me,” he confessed in the mid-1950s. “I wrote stage plays for the screen in
those days, because the theatre seemed closed to me” (Steene, 1972: 43).
1 In his Erasmus speech (1965), B stated that “people today can reject the theater,” since in
the TV age they “live in the midst of a drama which is constantly exploding in local tragedy” (B,
1972: 14).
B & Co. 15
Directors like Torsten Hammarén, Olof Molander, and Alf Sjöberg were
important mentors. Hammarén “taught me the methodological rudiments
of stagecraft. In a ruthless way he took me out of the notion of emotional
wallowing, i.e., of feeling your way [into a production] and of talking about
things” (B in Steene, 2005: 460). Molander was the leading Swedish stage
director in the thirties and forties, especially renowned for his Strindberg
productions. In the theatre program for his 1945 performance of Strindberg’s
The Pelican, B stated his indebtedness to Molander who:
has made us see the magic in Strindberg’s dramaturgy. [...] [He] gives us
Strindberg without embellishments or directional visions, tunes in to
the text, and leaves it at that. He makes us hear the poet’s anxiety-driven
fever pulse. [...] We listen to a strange, muted chamber music. [...]
First it was A Dream Play. Night after night I stood in the wings and sobbed
and never really knew why. After that came To Damascus, Saga of the
Folkungs, and The Ghost Sonata. It is the sort of thing you never forget
and never leave behind, especially if you happen to be a director […].
Alf Sjöberg was for a long time the chief director at Dramaten, responsible
for many successful productions. Although different in other respects, the
three directors shared a rather authoritarian attitude to the actors, typical
for the period. This attitude suited B well. Early described as a demonic
director, B has been characterised as a representative of “the despotic type
of direction” in the tradition of Olof Molander and Torsten Hammarén by
Keve Hjelm (2004: 130), himself an outstanding actor and director.2
…As head of Dramaten he reformed the theatre in several respects. He

increased the influence of the actors on decision-making. He improved
possibilities for a children’s theatre. And he organized public rehearsals.
At the end of the 1960s, under influence of the Vietnam War, the cultural
climate in Sweden changed. In addition to the traditional, institutionalised
theatres, free theatre groups arose. Politically left-wing, they regarded
theatre as a weapon in the struggle for a less elitist, more equal society
and applied strictly democratic principles to their work. Plays were written
by the groups themselves and were thoroughly debated by the cast during
2 Bengt Forslund (2003: 248, 264) has pointed to several professional similarities between
Olof Molander and B.
16 The Serious Game
rehearsals. Rather than being the supreme leader, the director was one of
the group. And the group was expected to embrace a left-wing standpoint
that agreed with ideas behind the productions. B soon came into conflict
with this politicised form of theatre which he experienced as intolerant
and neurotically topical. The free theatre groups, on their part, regarded
B’s work as elitist and his direction as authoritarian.
B’s “paternal home,” The Royal Dramatic Theatre, founded in 1788, is
Sweden’s national theatre. Its present edifice, centrally located in Stock-
holm, was erected in 1908 and is considered one of the capital’s most
beautiful Jugend buildings. In the period we are here concerned with some
370 people were employed at the theatre, about 80 of whom were actors.
Nearly 1400 performances were given every season on six stages. Three of
these were used by B: the Big Stage, a traditional proscenium stage with
a horse-shoe-formed auditorium seating 805; the Small Stage, a rebuilt
cinema, this too a proscenium stage seating 345; and the (former) Paint
Room, a flexible stage seating 200. While the Big Stage is hierarchic, some
seats being better and more expensive than others, the Small Stage and
the Paint Room are democratic in their arrangement of seats. The Paint
Room was B’s favourite stage. Thinking perhaps of Strindberg’s Intimate
Theatre which contained about as many equal seats, B’s plan was to make
this stage his own once he had stopped filming (Sjögren, 2002: 111). “The
Paint Room is a wonderful locality,” he found, “with perfect contact with
the audience. We have found the right sightlines, everyone sees well”
(ib.: 342). The Big Stage, on the other hand, was acoustically somewhat
problematic. “The second and third balconies are excellent. But if you
wish to be heard, for instance, between rows 6 and 12 in the stalls, you
need to have a good diction” (ib.: 245). In 1993 the machinery of the Big
Stage was digitalised.
Like most theatres in Sweden, Dramaten had in B’s time, and still has,
a primarily middle-class audience. In 1983, one year before B’s production
of King Lear, an investigation of Dramaten’s audience showed that 68% of
the theatre-goers were well-educated, 65% were women, 53% were politi-
cally liberal or conservative, 38% had seen 3-5 productions in that same
year, four out of five were Stockholmers; classical plays and comedies were
favoured (Nowak in Näslund/Sörenson, 1988: 200). The reasons for a visit
to a Dramaten production would vary from confidence in the quality of
the productions at the theatre to confidence in the director (very relevant
in B’s case), interest in particular actors, or in the play that was being
performed. Of great importance was the difference between spectators
with and without a theatre program; unlike the latter, the former received
B & Co. 17
additional information about the play to be performed, information that

would often influence their reception of the performance.
“Masterpieces of the past are good for the past: they are not good for
us.” Antonin Artaud’s (1958: 74) heretic standpoint clashed with B’s which
on the contrary maintained that “the classics express the problems of our
time better than the plays of our own time” (Expressen Feb. 13, 1973), a major
reason, it seems, why most of the plays he directed at Dramaten between
1984-2002 were indeed classics. Peter Brook (1972: 38) expressed himself
to the same effect: “all the theatres can do is make an unhappy choice
between great traditional writing or far less good modern works.” Charles
Marowitz (1986: 6), too, was in favour of the classics: “The special virtue of
a classic is that it can mean again and again – above and beyond what it
originally meant. It is a compliment to its endless resourcefulness, its ability
constantly to recreate itself like the chameleon that it is.”
In the 1970’s, B said in an interview, the attitude to the classics was
negative:
the classics weren’t to be played as classics. They had to be rewritten or

butchered, reduced to public polemics or private confrontations. They
were dismantled and disarmed. Instead of showing the unadulterated
classics in all their explosive energy, an effort was made to reduce them
to something cut and dried, clear and concise, easy to comprehend.
(Bergström, 1995: 18).
This evaluation provokes the question: How “unadulterated” were the

classics B himself produced in the following decades? In the subsequent
chapters this question will be dealt with.
B was not interested in the absurdists and referred to them as “fast food
for impatient people.” He never did Beckett or Pinter. He did not care for
political theatre and he staged Brecht only once: The Threepenny Opera. He
was indifferent to Lars Norén, since the mid-1980s Sweden’s most important
and most successful dramatist.
The primary reason for his choice of a particular play, B often assessed,
was that he had the right actors for it (Sjögren, 2002: 428). He would have
liked to direct Amorina and The Queen’s Jewel by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist,
both staged by Alf Sjöberg, but never felt that he had “the right cast”
for these plays (ib.: 184). Mishima’s Madame de Sade with its all-woman
cast was suitable because he could get precisely the actresses he wanted
(ib.: 429). During rehearsals of Miss Julie he sensed that Peter Stormare
would make a good Hamlet. Watching Pernilla Östergren rehearsing
18 The Serious Game
in his fourth Dream Play he realised that “f inally, after many years of
waiting, the Royal Dramatic Theatre had a new Nora” (B, 1994b: 321);
three years later she was to take up this part in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. A
major reason for the choice of Schiller’s Maria Stuart was that Pernilla
August and Lena Endre were both available for the main parts (Dagens
Nyheter Feb. 19, 1999).
Shakespeare, Molière, Ibsen, Strindberg are dramatists B frequently
returned to.3 Of these, Strindberg held a special place. Strindberg, he early
declared, “expressed things which I’d experienced and which I couldn’t find
words for” (B, 1973: 24). A major reason why B turned to directing was no
doubt that as a director he could express audiovisually what he was unable
or less able to express verbally. 4
Every theatre production, we now take for granted, has a director. But B
distinguished between plays which need a director and plays which don’t.
The plays by Marivaux, O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night and Albee’s
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, he maintained, need no director (Marker/
Marker, 1992: 15).5
Unlike a dramatist, a director is necessarily socially involved. “I have
an enormous need of contact with other people,” B told Timm (1994: 153),
adding that his profession highly fulfilled this need, especially in the theatre
where he would be surrounded by much the same people for long periods.
Although the head of Dramaten was and is officially responsible for the
repertoire each season and for the actors taking part in the productions,
B always had a strong, usually decisive, voice in both matters with regard
to his own productions (Löfgren, 2003: 401). As a master director he could
“without much discussion stage whatever he wanted, with whom he wanted
it and how he wanted it” (Kronlund, 2007: 254). “I have produced what I
wished to do or what I was told to do or what I felt obliged to do.” he once
told Sjögren (1968: 303).
About the road from first concept to production, B has said:
The fun part is the conception. The playfulness, the dreaming, the fun
and games are in the notebooks – the wonderful feeling of total freedom,
that you can do what you want. Then, when you have to codify this in
3 By a gentlemen’s agreement between them Alf Sjöberg had the rights to perform Shake-
speare. When he died in 1980, B was free to take over this task.
4 Early in his career B was often abused by literary oriented critics for his defective dialogue.
Gradually they changed their minds and instead began to praise it.
5 In the case of O’Neill B would prove right. When he rehearsed it several years later he soon
found himself reduced to “rehearsal custodian” (Löfgren, 1997: 141).
B & Co. 19
contact with the script and the actors, that’s when it’s important to keep
the fun from turning to tedium. You have to re-create it with painstaking
care and attention to detail. I have to sit at my desk at home and draw
scenery [i.e. blocking] and try to transform what I thought was fun and
fanciful into boring arrows and figures. Then this, in turn, has to be
communicated to the actors and tap into their creativity, so that they,
too, feel all the freedom, fun, and joy. For me, theatrical work has always
broken down into a fun period, when time flies, and a dull, pedantic
period.
[…]
There is a tremendous sense of satisfaction when I see that the actors are
enjoying their work. When we get warm contact during the rehearsals,
when they look eagerly at me because they sense we’re on the same
wavelength, on the same track. Then I feel that all the boring, hard work
I’ve put into my prompt books has been worthwhile. (Bergström, 1995:
19f.)
B’s prompt books bear witness of the director’s careful planning. They
are crammed with “arrows and figures” indicating the various blockings
during the performances. On the pages opposite the ones containing the
script B sometimes wrote down comments on the situation at hand; this
was presumably done during rehearsals. During the rehearsal period B,
unusually versatile in his profession, was thoroughly involved in all aspects
of the performance: scenery, costumes, choreography, light, sound, music.
Usually instructing the actors from a distance, he would occasionally get
very close to them and be very concrete in his instructions (for an example
see fragment 3 of The Bacchae on the dvd disc).
In interviews he was nevertheless often modest about his own role as
director. “There is nothing but actors’ theatre! The director is merely an
appendage,” he would claim (Timm, 1994: 148). He or she is simply “the ear
and the eye, the safety factor, the stimulator, the coordinator, the leader
and, to some extent, the teacher” (Sjögren, 1968: 300). Actors, he declared,
like working with me and it’s easy to explain. As a professional I’ve

devoted all my time to learning how an actor functions, how to get the
best results out of him. Since the actor is my chief instrument I have to
learn how to collaborate one hundred percent, and that’s something I’ve
gradually figured out. They know they’ll get all the service, the stimula-
tion, and technical assistance they need. (B, 1993: 251)
20 The Serious Game
Actors, he maintained at another time,
are independent people, exceedingly creative, and they fare best and
feel happiest if they get a chance to be creative themselves – get ideas,
find out, formulate. [...] If the director who has spent several months on
the play before the rehearsals start pours all his ideas about it over the
actors, he paralyses their creative faculties. If he feels that the actors
themselves are about to express what he himself has intended from
the beginning, he only needs to grab hold of their ideas and perhaps
develop them further. If he feels that his intentions are not expressed,
he can inject them through a piece of stage business or some such thing.
It is very important that the actors feel that they are independently
creative, and that the director is there primarily to record, to create a
sense of security, to stimulate and to guarantee a certain homogeneity.
(Törnqvist, 2000: 179)
Director Vogler, B’s alter ego in After the Rehearsal similarly observes: “Actors
are creative artists, but not particularly verbal. You have [as a director] to
listen, be patient, and wait. You can’t talk the actor’s often uncertain and
unclear ideas into the ground” (B, 2001: 22). The most important task of an
actor, B (1989: 41) once pointed out, “is to focus on and respond to his fellow
player. With no you, no I, as a wise person once put it.”
Many of B’s actors were undoubtedly creative during rehearsals. As mari-
onettes they could not have managed their parts the way they did. But to
what extent and how they were creative is difficult to ascertain. Neither B
nor any of the actors provide concrete examples.
In his autobiography, The Magic Lantern, B gives a succinct description
of his directorial work:
As I harbour a constant tumult within me and have to keep watch over

it, I also suffer agony when faced with the unforeseen, the unpredictable.
The exercise of my profession thus becomes a pedantic administration of
the unspeakable. I act as an intermediary, organizing, ritualizing. […] I
hate tumult, aggression or emotional outbursts. […]A rehearsal is proper
work, not private therapy for producer and actor. […]
I am never my private self. I observe, register, establish and control. I am
the actor’s surrogate eye and ear. I suggest, entice, encourage or refuse. I
am not spontaneous, impulsive or a fellow actor. It only looks as if I am.
If I were to raise the mask for one moment and say what I really feel, my
friends would turn on me and throw me out of the window.
B & Co. 21
Despite the mask, I am nevertheless not in disguise. My intuition speaks

swiftly and clearly. I am totally present. The mask is a filter but nothing
irrelevantly private is allowed to penetrate through. My own tumult must
be kept in place. (B, 1989: 33ff.)6
Testimonies by four prominent actors – two male, two female – complement

these self-descriptions of B as stage director:
Some directors have fantastic visions but cannot help the actor practi-
cally. This is where B is supreme. He can really help practically. With his
blocking. With his enormously sensitive ear. He only needs to say “we’ll
have a pause here,” and it solves something and creates completely new
notes. He is unbeatable. (Anita Björk in Näslund/Sörenson, 1988: 227).
B is, artistically, a rather tender-hearted person and if you show will-

power yourself he respects it – at the same time he has a method to get
things his way, while at the same time you believe that it becomes the
way you yourself want it. (Ulf Johanson in Näslund/Sörenson, 1988: 221)
He puts the stake [during rehearsals] as high as we actors. That’s why

he is such a brilliant director. (Agneta Ekmanner in Wirmark, 1996: 29)
Ingmar’s disciplinary philosophy I experience as extremely rewarding.

Actors are rarely disciplined. They need someone who takes hold of them
and says “Will you please.” […] His fits of rage […] I often experience
as […] well calculated and having a certain effect. (Max von Sydow in
Wirmark, 1996: 25, 29)
According to von Sydow, B often talked about the rhythm, pauses, and
silences. He liked to use musical terms and preferred the term choreography
to blocking when explaining how he positioned actors in relation to one
another and to the audience and how he conceptualised their movements
and gestures (Marker/Marker, 1992:12).
When asked whether he made use of any particular acting method, for
example those of Stanislavsky or Strasberg, B simply answered “My own!”
He added that the normal rehearsal period would be eight to ten weeks (B,
1993: 252), thereby indicating the thoroughness of the productions. Each
6 Virtually the same description is given by B’s alter ego, director Henrik Vogler, in the TV
play After the Rehearsal.
22 The Serious Game
play meant a new challenge, needed its own approach (Steene, 2005: 470).
Disinterested in ideological theories about play production, B’s ‘method’
was primarily intuitive, pragmatic, and highly individual.
Seeing the play text as a score, B frequently claimed that he made “no
changes or additions that he did not extract from the notes” (Sjögren, 1968:
313). “I cannot and will not stage a play against the writer’s intentions. And
I never have deliberately. I have always regarded myself as an interpreter,
a re-creator” (ib.: 293).
Thirty-four years later he said: “An author may not always be conscious
of why he does something in a special way but if you interpret what he has
unconsciously created, then it lives” (Sjögren, 2002: 358).
These are odd remarks from a director who actually made substantial
cuts in the play texts to facilitate efficiency and intelligibility, and who
sometimes did not hesitate to change play sequences and add bits of his
own. As we shall see, B’s assurance of fidelity to the text badly agrees with
his practice.7 On the other hand, compared to the radical play adaptations
applied today by many directors, B’s departures from the play texts seem
quite modest.
A primary concern for B was always how to stimulate the imagination
of the audience and make them emotionally involved in the action. What
mattered was the audience’s ability to dispense with their disbelief and let
the performance take place in their imagination. This did not mean that
the audience accepted the action as real. The spectator, B found,
continually undergoes changes of mind, changes in his concentration.

[…] From being completely involved at one instant the spectator is at the
very next instant aware of being in the theatre. The next second he is
involved again, completely involved; then after three seconds he is back
again in the theatre” (Marker, 1983: 251).
The director could help in this back-and-forth movement: “I believe that if

you pull the audience out of the action for a time and then lead them back
into it, you will increase emotional sensibility and receptivity instead of
diminishing it” (ib.: 252).
On the stage, Henrik Vogler, B’s alter ego in After the Rehearsal, says,
“everything represents, nothing is” (B, 2001: 24). B had earlier exemplified
this with the parable of the magic chair:
7 For a criticism of B’s claim to faithfulness to the source text, see Törnqvist, 2008: 276ff.
B & Co. 23
You put an ordinary simple chair on the stage. And then you ask the
audience to take well care of it, for it is made of platin art glass and
worth 19 million dollars. You exit and then two villains enter and begin
to throw it between them. The audience becomes frightened out of their
wits, for they have accepted that the chair is made of platin art glass and
is worth 19 million dollars. This is the whole secret of theatre, you see.
(Sjögren, 1968: 311)8
8 The situation described here was later dramatised in Fanny and Alexander, where little
Fanny, representing the child as ideal spectator, interrupts the villain with her brusque “Don’t
touch that chair!”
2. William Shakespeare, King Lear
King Lear, Bradley (1963: 208f.) says, is possibly Shakespeare’s best play
when read. When staged it is inferior to the other three great tragedies:
Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. The reason for this discrepancy between
the play as read and as staged is that “the number of essential characters
is so large, their actions and movements are so complicated, and events
towards the close crowd on one another so thickly” that even “the reader’s
attention […] is overstrained;” a cut stage version, he argues, will make the
play even more unintelligible. Charles Marowitz, who was co-director in
Peter Brook’s renowned 1962 production of King Lear, takes the contrary
view; the play, he f inds, “is so organically conceived that one can cut
out great chunks and still not impair its essence” (Williams, 1992: 20). B
apparently agreed with Marowitz; his King Lear was cut with about one
third.
Rejecting the existing Swedish translations of the play, B commissioned
Britt G. Hallqvist to provide him with “a playable, speakable and above all
intelligible version,” as he writes in the theatre program (Shakespeare, 1984:
6); he also expresses his gratitude for the “robust and solid equipment” she
had provided his team with in their “difficult expedition into the hard-to-
penetrate and mysterious continent called King Lear.” Hallqvist’s integral
translation is reprinted in the program; changes in the performance are
indicated in the text. It is not mentioned on which source text the translator
has based her translation, but B’s somewhat ironical remark in the program
on “brilliant commentators like Kenneth Muir“ suggests that it is Muir’s
edition of King Lear in the renowned Arden Shakespeare that has formed
the basis for the translation.
King Lear, B summarised tongue-in-cheek during the rehearsal period,
is actually “an ordinary story about a dominant pater familias who takes
early retirement and divides the heritage between his children in the hope
of binding them with constant gratitude and happiness, a daily guest who
gives good advice and knows everything better, self-contentedly assured
that he has secured board and lodging for the rest of his life. But the king
is mistaken” (Dagens Nyheter Dec. 7, 1983).
The tragedy consists of 5 acts and 26 scenes. B abstained from the act
division and reduced the play to 21 scenes. Since the action was to take
place on an empty stage, a stage representing our world, all place indica-
tions – “A room in King Lear’s palace,” “A heath,”etc. – were omitted. In the
26 The Serious Game
source text II.3,1 showing Edgar in “A wood,” is inserted between the scene
in “Gloucester’s Castle,” where Kent is placed in the stocks, and the scene
where Lear discovers him there. B combined these two scenes and placed
the wood scene in its natural environment between the heath scenes III.2
and III.3. The controversy between Edgar and Oswald, ending in Oswald’s
death, was deleted. Shakespeare’s Gentleman became a Scribe, his Officer
a Physician.
A play about good and evil rather than about good and evil characters,2
King Lear is set in a pre-Christian era. There are many references to higher
powers. In V.3 Lear speaks of mankind as “God’s spies.”3 But Gloucester
claims that “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods” (IV.1). Does this
indicate that Shakespeare’s Lear is a monotheist, his Gloucester a polytheist?
If so, his Lear is in this respect an exception. With B it was rather Gloucester
who, through the director’s many omissions of “gods,” was an exception.
A significant deletion was the elimination of Edmund’s failed attempt
to withdraw his order to have Lear and Cordelia executed. This is the one
sign in Shakespeare’s play that Edmund is not altogether evil. It was not, I
think, that B did not grant Edmund this little sign of goodwill; the reason
was rather that it comes too late to convince and it leads to nothing, since
Lear is not saved by the withdrawal of Edmund’s order but by Lear’s own
killing of his intended executioner.
The scenographer, Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss (1995: 48ff.), has informed
us both about the stage and the costumes for the Lear production. The
circular stage, representing the world or, in Lear’s words, “this stage of fools,”
remained empty of ordinary properties throughout the performance and
could in this sense recall Shakespeare’s Elizabethan stage. The proscenium
frame was covered by black cloth, as was the ceiling above the blood-red
cyclorama at the back of the stage. The stage was covered by a red carpet. At
the front of it there was a sloping black floor with stairs, serving to eliminate
the border between stage and auditorium. The same effect was reached
by having the circular stage with its red cyclorama match the horse-shoe
shape and colour of the auditorium. Red and black were the dominating
colours, a combination we easily associate with the Nazi flag and regime.
Clearly, director and scenographer had created a theatrum mundi in which
1 For the benefit of the reader references are to the act/scene division in Shakespeare’s King
Lear (1978).
2 “The children are not children for nothing; to be the father of Goneril is to create a symbol
of the evil brought forth from oneself” (Heilman, 1963: 34).
3 Bradley (1963: 226, note 2) points out that his use of “God” in singular at this point is unique
in the play.
William Shakespeare, King Lear 27
the distinction between the characters and the audience was subordinated
to the idea that we are all as human beings inhabitants of this same world.
It was wholly in agreement with this idea that the characters remained on
the stage throughout the performance – as we all stay on here until we die.
Lear’s decision to have his realm divided between his three daughters
was visualised by having a huge map spread out on the floor. To indicate his
realm’s geographical nonexistence, it showed a mythic Rorschach picture.
Lear stood and walked on it, thereby emphasising his position as absolute
ruler of his kingdom; it was in this position he fittingly received his three
potential heirs to the throne.
In the beginning, Lear wore a yellow, embroidered imperial robe reaching
to his feet and golden gloves. On his head he had a golden crown. An absolute
Roi Soleil, declamatorily asserting his rights. 4 Later, reduced to the level of
the common people and even to that of the lunatics, he wore – I quote from
the costume list – “a gray poor man’s shirt with a low slung-rope around
the middle. A black patinised poor man’s coat. Gray-coloured long pants.”
His clothes showed his social decline from golden height to grey common-
ness. At the same time there was a touch of monk-like penitence in his
greyness. Goneril – in the prompt copy described as “her father’s daughter
[...], arrogant, dangerous, cold and not pretty” – wore a lilac-red, low-necked
dress of worn velvet. Regan – in the prompt copy described as “contrasting
with her sister; pretty, coquettish” – had a bright-red, low-necked brocade
dress, indicating that she was younger than her sister. Both had their own
courts, dressed in colours similar to themselves. When the two courts
gathered opposite each other the nuances of red could be seen; when they
were seated close to the red cyclorama their colours almost mingled with
it. Cordelia who unlike her sisters had no court – a way of emphasising her
independence – in the beginning wore a “rose-coloured crêpe-silk dress
covered by gray chiffon” with black silk in cross-form in front, anticipating
her suffering and eventual martyrdom. She had a grey cotton petticoat,
grey low-heeled shoes and a grey velvet coat. The simplicity of Cordelia’s
costume, agreeing with her honesty, formed a marked contrast to the
glamorous costumes of her sisters. Albany and Cornwall wore costumes
in colours reminiscent of those worn by their wives Goneril and Regan.
Like Edmund they had big cod-pieces emphasising their sexual appetite.
Gloucester and his sons Edgar and Edmund all wore black clothes, the good
4 Some reviewers found Lear’s diction a somewhat disturbing sign of old-fashioned acting.
But Timm (2008: 541) convincingly argues that the diction served to emphasise “that the king
belonged to a past era.”
28 The Serious Game
Edgar in lustreless cloth, the evil Edmund in shining cloth. Gloucester’s

black gown – a sign of learnedness – contained both lustreless and shining
parts. In the prompt copy Edmund is described in surprisingly respectful
terms as someone who “takes responsibility for his attitude; new age; doesn’t
blame the gods.” Edgar is described as “credulous, confused, near-sighted,
kind, absent-minded; a Hamlet.” The Duke of Burgundy and the King of
France were dressed in green-and-blue costumes of different shades to
indicate their outsider status. Jugglers and musicians wore earth-green
colours, put together like collages. The Fool shared their colour scheme
except that the back of his trousers was mended with a red piece of cloth,
“an ironical grimace at the red colours of the royalties.” The costumes of
the equally tall, grey-uniformed soldiers were a hybrid between “medieval
Japanese warriors (inspired by Kurosawa) and science fiction soldiers. The
past and the future were connected” (Palmstierna-Weiss, 1995: 50ff.).
While the spectators were still arriving and taking their seats, the
performance opened with a twelve-minute ‘prologue,’ an addition by the
director. Downstage, close to the audience, the backs of a row of soldiers
with lowered lances in their hands formed a bodyguard around the King
who was standing in the middle of the circular stage, his back turned to
the audience. Facing him was a group of musicians – with flutes, drums,
a lute – playing a solemn variation of the Fool’s ditty in III.2 with the lines
He that has and a little tiny wit,

[…]
Must make content with his fortunes fit.
It was to this tune that male and female dancers reverently performed
to the King – who would soon show “little tiny wit” – the female dancers
sometimes alone gracefully curtseying to him, their behaviour mimicking
what he expected from his three daughters in return for his generosity
toward them.
As soon as the King had left, the music and dancing changed radically
into popular self-entertainment: wild singing, dancing, hand-clapping,
shouting, somersaults etc. It was a sequential contrast, indicating a gap
in society anticipating Lear’s decline from royalty to beggar and recalling
Shakespeare’s double audience: the nobility in their “Lords’ Rooms” versus
the lower-class groundlings. Finally, a group of white-painted ‘clowns’
ran front-stage and looked straight at the audience as they sang the Fool’s
ditty with its examples of how everything had become topsy-turvy in his
kingdom:
When usurers tell their gold i’th’field;

And bawds and whores do churches build;
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.
The ditty was a ‘Brechtian’ motto for the performance-to-come and pointed
forward to the ending.
The King’s abdication set the play in motion. Addressing Albany and
Cornwall, the successors to the throne, Lear told them: “As a sign of your
position, you may share / this crown between you.” He took off his crown,
raised it above his head and held it in turn above the heads of Albany and
Cornwall, both of them kneeling. He then placed the crown on the floor
centrally downstage, where it was put in spotlight. As a visual image of
power it remained there throughout the performance. The only one who
dared touch it was the Fool who once (in III.6) discreetly touched it with
his shoe. Was it to indicate the universal attraction of power? Was it to
suggest Lear’s, his alter ego’s, regret at having abstained his power? Or was
it in mockery of the crown as image of power?
When this happened the Fool had already presented Lear with his fool’s
cap. In IV.6, when Lear has clearly turned mad, he appears, it says in the
text, “fantastically dressed with wild flowers.” B had him wear a long grey
slip and a wreath of wild flowers on his head, each flower having a symbolic
significance. The wreath was at once a substitute for the crown; a thing of
nature instead of something man-made; a traditional way of celebrating
Midsummer in Sweden; and above all a counterpart of the crown of thorns,
the symbol of substitutive suffering; prominent in the wreath was a poppy,
with its blood-red colour an allusion to the Passion of Christ (Cooper, 1978: 218).
III.2, set on the heath, opened with a spotlight on the crown. Another
spot slowly revealed Lear next to it, surrounded by darkness. His soliloquy
in the source text reads:
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’the world,
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man.
30 The Serious Game
This difficult-to-grasp soliloquy was rendered in a shortened, extremely

free rendering:
Cursed be the day when I was born!

Anguish pours over me like water.
I have become a leaf driven by the wind
– dust, dust and ashes, a dried straw!
An abomination to those close to me,
an object of ridicule have I become,
dumped in darkness…
Shakespeare’s Lear at this point rages against mankind and prays for the
annihilation of the world; he still feels “more sinned against than sinning.”
B’s Lear, on the other hand, already filled with self-contempt and guilt-
feelings, raged against himself.
The Fool calls himself “Lear’s shadow,” and so he was in B’s version. In I.4
the Fool put his fool’s cap on Lear’s head, and in I.5 – the scene B liked the
best in the whole play he wrote in his prompt copy – the near-identity of
the two became explicit. When the scene opened the Fool entered eating an
apple. The reason for this became clear when he warned Lear, who hoped
to be treated quite differently by Regan than he had been by Goneril, that
this would hardly be the case. By comparing Goneril with a wild apple and
Regan with a garden apple, he recognised some difference between them
but emphasised their basic similarity. That he was eating an apple also
served to remind the audience of the apple of “the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil” (Gen. 2: 17), the eating of which was the Original Sin affecting
all of us.
The Fool and Lear are themselves like two different yet related ‘apples’:
fool.... Sweet fool and bitter fool,

You see them both here.
One wears a motley dress.
The other is sitting Points to lear. there.
lear. Why do you call me a fool, fool?
fool. All your other titles you’ve given away, but this one you were born
with.
The ambiguity of ‘fool’ was concretised in this exchange between someone

who was fearing for his own sanity and someone who professionally pre-
tended to be crazy, between a near-fool and a would-be fool. At end of the
scene, B had Lear lean his back against the Fool who caringly embraced him.
The two formed a visual unity. When Lear later on the heath was surrounded
by fools, the audience could experience them either as objective fools or as
subjective specters of his insane mind.
A striking innovation was the use of human beings as properties. Lear set
the pattern when he offered his realm to his daughters sitting on a servant.
Shortly after this Goneril and Regan were using male servants as chairs,
a social as well as sexual suppression. Later both they and their husbands
were sitting on human chairs, disguised by the women’s huge dresses but
visible as kneeling bare-foot servants between the men’s trousered legs.
When Kent was put in stocks, the stocks were formed by servants. Lear’s
table was supported by three servants. Having conquered the French army,
Edmund sat down on someone with bare feet, a servant or a prisoner. Serv-
ants formed the catafalque for the dead Cornwall. The social hierarchy
could hardly have been more poignantly illustrated than through these
visual symbols of power distribution.
Another striking feature was the almost constant presence of background
groups which in changing constellations formed a mute comment on the
action among the main characters centre stage.5 The groups at times
formed one homogeneous whole, at other times they split into two, as when
the conflict between Goneril and Regan became apparent. They could
turn toward or away from a character; this was how the soldiers changed
their attitude to Lear in II.4. They could stand immobile when important
statements were made by the main characters or they could keep moving,
notably when scene shifts occurred. When Burgundy and Frankland were
courting Cordelia they formed a row of loving couples. When Albany in
I.4 seemed in control of his wife Goneril, three couples were seen behind
them, the men, hand on sword, in front of the women. Shortly thereafter,
when Goneril attacked Albany, the women in the background had moved
in front of the men. In II.4 a row of women in the background, all in red,
put one foot on male servants, all dressed in black, prostrate on the floor.
The women indicated the growing dominance of Goneril and Regan, they
too in red, not only toward their father but also toward their husbands.
In II.4 where Lear has been rejected by Goneril, the lances of the three
soldiers in the background were topped by crosses, an indication of Lear’s
martyrdom. In V.2 a compact wall of soldiers, this time representing Lear’s
French army, to the somber sound of kettle-drums moved forward; in front
5 Tord Bæckström in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning compared them to the chorus
in old Greek drama, always present and serving as a sounding-board for the action.
32 The Serious Game
of them panic-stricken people fled down into the auditorium, transmitting

the fear, as it were, to the audience.
As in fairy-tales and morality plays, the characters in King Lear tend to
be black and white, good or evil. The wickedness of the evil characters –
Goneril, Regan, Cornwall and Edmund – takes the form of greed: for power,
wealth and, easier to demonstrate in the theatre, for sex.
In the source text the relationship between Goneril and her steward
Oswald is not erotic. B added this aspect to it. At the end of I.3, Goneril
orders Oswald to treat Lear and his retinue condescendingly and informs
him that she will tell Regan to treat them in the same way. As she was
doing this, B’s Goneril, secluded by an orange curtain held up by three
of her ladies in waiting, let Oswald creep under her dress and suck her
intimates. Always creeping to his superiors, he willingly obeyed. Apart
from illustrating Goneril’s lasciviousness, the combination of words and
action made her orgasm seem not only sexual but also hierarchical. Her
seduction of Oswald – and unfaithfulness to her husband – prepared for
her attempts later to seduce Edmund.
When Edmund in II.1 lies when saying that Edgar has conspired with
Lear’s retinue, Regan suspiciously assumes that they have plotted to murder
Lear and waste his revenues. When saying this to Edmund, B’s Regan took
an orange handkerchief from between her breasts and smilingly gave it to
him. For this she received a telling smile in return.
This erotic approach did not prevent her from caressing her husband’s
cod-piece in the next scene when listening to Oswald’s complaint about
Kent. In III.7 the outstretched hands of Goneril and Edmund met as Corn-
wall, wantonly embracing Regan, voiced his condemnation of Gloucester.
IV.2 opened with Goneril and Edmund copulating rolling across the stage,
Goneril on top. She then stood up and, with Oswald approaching, hypocriti-
cally curtseyed to Edmund and said: “Welcome here. I wonder why / my
mild husband does not come to meet us.” A little later Shakespeare’s Goneril
gives Edmund “a favour”; with B this was a necklace which she, both of
them kneeling, hung around Edmund’s neck. In V.1 Edmund soliloquised
downstage, facing the audience:
I swore to love both sisters.

Which of them shall I take?
One? Both? Or neither? – I get neither
if both remain alive.
Looks at miniature portrait of Goneril on his necklace.
Goneril goes mad from rage
if I choose Takes up orange handkerchief. Regan.

I shall hardly win the game
Looks at portrait of Goneril.
as long as her husband is alive.
Looks at portrait and then at handkerchief,
tears off necklace, holds it up, then drops it.
Necklace, portrait, and handkerchief, metonymies for Goneril and Regan,

here came together. And while Edmund’s words left his choice unsettled,
his final action – dropping the necklace – settled the matter.
The most savage moment in the play is the blinding of Gloucester in
III.7. Gloucester says that he has sent the King to Dover in order not to have
Regan’s “cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes.” Ironically, it is Gloucester’s
own eyes that are soon being plucked – by Cornwall. B had Gloucester
half-lie downstage centre. Taking his cue from Cornwall’s “Upon these
eyes of thine I’ll set my foot” – a line deleted in the performance – B had
Cornwall set one of his black leather boots to one of Gloucester’s eyes.
The effect was obvious to the audience from Gloucester’s screaming from
pain. Regan then moved close to Gloucester, looked at his face and said:
“One eye mocks smilingly the other. / Take both!” The last was obviously
addressed to Cornwall. But she was interrupted by the Servant who asked
Cornwall to pardon Gloucester. In the source text Cornwall at this moment
draws his sword and starts to fight with the Servant. Regan comes to his
support, “takes a sword and runs at him [the servant] behind.” A little
later it appears that Cornwell has been fatally wounded. B instead had
Cornwall attempt to strangle the Servant, when Regan stabbed him in
the back with a dagger.
When the Servant, dying, tells Gloucester that he has “one eye left” to
see how he, the Servant, had wounded Cornwall, Cornwall replies: “Lest it
see more, prevent it.” This implies that he now puts out Gloucester’s second
eye and thus fulfills his promise to set out both eyes. In the performance
these lines were given to Regan and acted out as follows:
regan. That he will never see, that I promise.

Gouges out gloucester’s second eye with her dagger.
Out, vile jelly! Dries off the blood on her breast and womb.
Where is now your lustre?
B, it will be seen, had Regan take a more actively sadistic part in the blinding
of Gloucester than was suggested by the text. Presumably B’s intention was
34 The Serious Game
to demonstrate that the seemingly softer Regan was in fact even more cruel
than Goneril.
The blinding of Gloucester showed Regan and Cornwall at their beastli-
est. In part of this scene she wore the mask of a leopard, he the mask of a
tiger. But also the background characters wore masks of various beasts of
prey. Each character wore the mask characterising him or her.6 The last
Gloucester saw before he was blinded were the animal masks. Were they
real or products of his imagination? The same question could be asked
about the soldiers who did not wear masks but who, with their closed visors,
seemed robot-like; inhuman.
In her attempt to cure her father from his madness, Cordelia in IV.4,
set in the French camp, meets the Doctor, with B significantly dressed in
a monk-like garb. He tells her that Nature has many means to “close the
eye of anguish.” The Doctor at this moment handed Cordelia a red flower,
recalling the red poppy in Lear’s wreath. Cordelia blessed the flower as she
tenderly held her hands around it.
The next scene, in Gloucester’s castle, opens with Regan and Oswald. B
unexpectedly let their dialogue take place as Regan, in front of an orange
curtain, had one lady of waiting polish her nails,7 while another held up
a hand-mirror to her. The situation was clearly designed as an artificial,
selfish contrast to Cordelia’s loving care for her father in the former scene.
When Regan asks Oswald if Edmund has spoken to Oswald’s master, that
is, Albany, Oswald briefly says “No.” At this moment B’s Regan cried “ah!”
and drew back a finger, obviously wounded by the lady in waiting polishing
her nails. In a deeper sense it indicated that what wounded Regan was
the implication that Edmund had turned to Goneril rather than to her
husband. 8 With the wisdom of madness,9 Lear in IV.4 preaches to the
blinded Gloucester: “When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this
great stage of fools.” B surrounded Lear, now dressed in a black gown cover-
ing a grey poor-man’s shirt, with a crowd of poor people corresponding to
the fools Lear referred to, an emblematic picture of the spiritual poverty
6 For illustrations of the masks, see Olofgörs, 1995: 168.

7 As we have seen, Gloucester has earlier spoken of Regan’s “cruel nails.” And Lear has
prophesied that “with her nails” Regan will flay Goneril’s “wolfish visage.”
8 The clue for Regan’s sudden gesture was presumably taken from Lear’s “Are these my hands?
/ Let’s see…yes, the pin pricks” (IV.7). But what for Regan was painful and inflicted by someone
else, was for Lear self-inflicted to prove that he was alive.
9 Heilman (1963) heads one of his chapters “Reason in Madness,” another “Madness in Reason.”
The former refers to Lear, the Fool, Edgar and Gloucester, the latter to Goneril, Regan, Cornwall
and Edmund.
of mankind. In contrast to the uniformity of the groups at the courts, the

crowd surrounding Lear on the heath was highly individualised; in his
prompt script B lists the members of the crowd as follows:
Anders, a laughing man

Peter, the couple with the child
Margaret, stigmatized village saint
Anna, Karin, carry cranium (obsessed by death)
Kim, cripple, without leg
Ralph, carries dying brother
Borgund, flaggelant, rejected monk
Skoglund, catatonic, insane
Pierre, shaker (dementia tremens)
A blend of physical and mental sufferers, they form a representative piece

of suffering mankind.
With the combat between Edgar and Edmund toward the end of the play
the suspense reaches a summit. When Edgar challenges his half-brother,
his identity is unknown. Shakespeare indicates that his anonymity is
safe-guarded by his being “armed,” and Edmund remarks that he looks
“warlike”; normally, Rosenberg (1972: 304) points out, Edgar here “is in bright,
unidentifiable armour, helmeted, plumed.” B instead had Edgar appear with
his head completely covered, except for the eyes, with a black cap, in Sweden
known as burglar’s hood. The honest man was in other words disguised as
a criminal; his mask belied his face. The two combatants were identically
dressed, altogether in black. Instead of the usual fight with swords, B made
use of an ancient, possibly mythic type of fight called belt-wrestling in
Sweden, in which the fighters joined their belts and tried to hit each other
with their daggers.10 Departing from the tradition concerning belt-wrestling,
B had the combatants’ eyes covered with black bandages, thereby providing
a link with the black bandage of the eyeless Gloucester, their father. The
fight was preceded by regular thumping of the soldier’s lances, culminating
in Albany’s loud thump, marking that the fight could begin.
B’s choice of belt-wrestling was not an endeavour to remind the audi-
ence of a national custom. Rather, by bringing the two identically dressed
half-brothers – the legitimate and the illegitimate, the good and the bad
– as closely together as possible in a fight of life and death, it was a way of
10 Sculptures representing belt-wrestling can be found in several places in Sweden, among

others outside the National Gallery in Stockholm.
36 The Serious Game
suggesting that the two were, in a sense, parts of the same whole.11 Seen in
this way, the fight was internalised. Good and evil became a struggle within
one and the same human being: Everyman.
When Edmund had been fatally hit, he asked his killer who he was. Edgar
now unmasked himself. Goneril rushed up to the dying Edmund, kissed
him, took his dagger, raised it, then moved upstage where a lady in waiting
covered her with a huge mourning veil as a sign that she had taken her life.
At the end, Albany asks Kent and Edgar to rule the realm. It is implied
that two good men as rulers will compensate for the two bad rulers of the
recent past. But Kent declines: “I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; / My
master calls me, I must not say no.” He obviously means a journey to the
after-life, but it remains unclear whether he refers to his old age, imply-
ing that he probably has few years yet to live and is too old to co-rule the
kingdom; or whether it is a euphemistic way of saying that he intends to
shorten his life. B chose the latter. After the quoted lines his Kent slowly
moved upstage where he covered himself with the symbolic mourning veil.
The last lines of the play are given to Albany in the Quarto edition, to
Edgar in the Folio edition. Both alternatives have had their defenders. Muir
gives them to Edgar, but Hallqvist gives them to Albany.12 The lines read:
The weight of this sad time we must obey,

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
In B’s version the last line ended with a question: “Will years and burdens
be fewer for us who are younger?”
This question was soon answered in the negative. The dead Lear leaning
over the dead Cordelia was carried away in a funeral procession formed by
the common people, mournfully humming the same tune as the courtiers
had been singing in the beginning. The crown was picked up by a servant
who ran up with it to Albany and Edgar who were heading the procession.
He kneeled and put the crown before them. At this moment Albany and
Edgar instead of showing reconciliation – Shakespeare’s ending – drew
11 Cf. the female double face in Persona, consisting of two halves from the two struggling
characters.
12 Muir (in Shakespeare, 1978: 206) argues that the words “we that are young,” in view of his
age, are more natural in Edgar’s mouth than in Albany’s. But the actor doing B’s Albany was eight
years younger than the actor doing Edgar. If Edgar is given the final speech, “we” may signal a
royal plural (Rosenberg, 1972: 323).
swords on each other. The suggestion was that the conflict between Goneril
and Regan was to be repeated not only by these two men but endlessly. For
“the struggles of life never end.” 13 But suddenly there was a big bang and
complete darkness. When the lights came up the audience witnessed how
the backdrop fell down and revealed the machinery behind it. It was at
once an unmasking of theatre-as-illusionism14 and, more importantly, an
answer to Kent’s question in V.8, “Is this the promis’d end,”15 in B’s version
freely translated as: “Is this the end of the world?”
King Lear, Kott (1966: 364) has remarked, “is a play about the disintegra-
tion of the world.”
The production of King Lear was actually a kind of guest performance,
since B was at the time still engaged at the Residenztheater in Munich. The
production was on the whole enthusiastically received. But some critics
declared that they were more impressed than moved by the performance.
Guest performances were presented in Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Amsterdam,
and Tampere.
13 This is the final line of Strindberg’s Erik XIV, staged by B in 1956, where dukes Charles and
John come into conflict as soon as they have removed the King, their brother Erik, from power.
14 “We look into the dusty theatre machinery over the heads of actors who have just been
playing King Lear at Dramaten,” Thomas Bredsdorff noted in his review in Politiken.
15 Kermode’s (2000: 184) comment is relevant: “The play demands that we think of its events
in relation to the last judgment, the promised end itself, calling the conclusion an image of that
horror” (V.3.264f.).
3. August Strindberg, Miss Julie
When Miss Julie1 opened on Dramaten’s Small Stage, it was B’s second staging
of the play. Four years earlier he had directed it as Julie at the Residenz-
theater in Munich with German actors and in a translation by Peter Weiss
(Strindberg, 1984). In Munich, Julie was presented together with Ibsen’s
A Doll’s House – here, as often in Germany, entitled Nora – and B’s own
stage adaptation of his TV serial Scenes from a Marriage. The premiere
took place on April 30, 1981. The three plays were presented in one and
the same evening, Nora and Julie consecutively on the Main Stage of the
Residenztheater, Scenes from a Marriage at the Theater am Marstall close
by. The same ticket gave access to all three performances. The idea was to
present what B called “three sisters” who all found themselves in gender-
determined crisis situations.2
B’s interpretation in Munich formed the basis for his Dramaten produc-
tion seven years later. In the meantime, the play had been published in the
scholarly edition August Strindbergs Samlade Verk, a reason why B wanted to
stage the play anew and this time in Swedish. Another reason was naturally
that he wished to direct this very Swedish play in his native language with
Swedish actors in a Swedish theatre for a Swedish audience.
In addition to the theatre program, the audience was provided with
a separate edition of the preface and the play (Strindberg, 1985b). A few
passages, it was shown here, had been cut; but the changes with regard to
Kristin’s mime and the Ballet were not shown.
The audience was confronted with an attractive and unusually powerful
Kristin aged 40. Jean, aged 32, combined a boyish vitality with a need to
embellish his life with invented stories. With her 43 years Julie was visibly
marked by her past; this was especially noticeable when Jean called her a
child “at twenty-five.”3 Partly brought up as a boy, she was rather masculine
with her short, straight hair and her authoritarian manner. Jean’s social
need to seduce a lady had its counterpart in Julie’s need to triumph over a
1 A richly illustrated comprehensive bilingual examination of the play and B’s 1988 staging
of it is found in Törnqvist, 2012, also in www.missjulie.eu.
2 B had directed Chekhov’s Three Sisters at the Residenztheater in 1978. The Julie performance
is commented on and transcribed into English in Marker/Marker, 1983: 31-38, 101-47. For the
reception in Munich, see Sjögren, 2002: 272ff. and Steene, 2005: 660ff.
3 Julie’s part was planned for Ewa Fröhling (born 1952), who a few years earlier had played
Emily, the mother of Fanny and Alexander in the film of that name. But three weeks before the
opening she resigned and was replaced by Marie Göranzon (Sjögren, 2002: 337).
40 The Serious Game
man. Jean’s attraction to a Julie much older than him combined with her
masculinity played down the erotic element on his part and increased
the impression that to him it was above all her social position that was
attractive.
Strindberg’s kitchen is oblique in relation to the footlights, thereby in-
cluding, as it were, the foremost part of the audience in the kitchen (Rokem,
1986: 56). B’s kitchen was rectangular and ran parallel with the footlights.
A huge beam on the ceiling indicated a suppressed kitchen level for the
proletarians. The colouring was sparse: green for the tiny birches taken into
the kitchen as a sign of Midsummer, brown for the copper lids and the water
barrel, violet for the lilacs on the table. Grey was the dominant colour. The
reason for this was not only that this colour fitted the lower class environ-
ment. Equally important was that the grey colour, here reproduced in no less
than ten different shades, is a neutral colour, showing the rhythm of day and
night from afternoon light to evening light to nocturnal darkness – never
truly dark since it is Midsummer – to warm sunrise. The grey nuances
absorb and transform the light. A cold shade results in a very cold, colourless
room, whereas a warm light on grey makes the room come alive, lightens it
up. These are effects which you cannot achieve with other colours. 4
The overruling lighting, measuring the discrepancy between playing
time and played time, concerned the change from evening to morning
light. At the same time the transition from warm light (sunset) to cold light
(early morning) back to warm light (sunrise) accompanied the emotional
development between Jean and Julie and the consolation the final sunrise
meant for her. The oblique light worked shadows which especially toward
the end seemed calamitous.
The violet of the lilacs had its counterpart in Julie’s violet dress, cut like
a young girl’s summer dress. As a liturgic colour, violet stands for penitence
during the time of the Passion (Biedermann, 1991: 467). It is also the colour
often worn by ageing women. The contrast between the somber colour of
her dress and its life-affirming cut was indicative of Julie’s inner division.
Jean wore in the beginning parts of his black servant’s livery, a social
costume, whereas Kristin, unlike Strindberg’s cook but in agreement with
19th century reality, appeared in a dark dress, somewhat shorter than Julie’s
and with shorter sleeves than hers, indications that her costume was a
4 Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss, Some comments on the scenography of Miss Julie, 1987 (audio-
taped interview with Egil Törnqvist).
August Strindberg, Miss Julie 41
working dress. Similarly, Julie’s white slip, when occasionally glimpsed,

contrasted with Kristin’s beige one, made of coarser material.5
The kitchen was immediately visible when the audience took their seats.
This gave the spectators ample time to familiarise themselves with the
stage picture which showed:
A large, light-gray sousterrain kitchen. In the rear wall three small, violet-
tinted windows, some opaque, some transparent. Behind the latter green
bushes or trees can be glimpsed. In the middle of the rear wall two swinging
glass doors, reached by a short flight of stairs. A gray-white cast-iron stove
with an exhaust hood by the left wall, a kitchen sink behind it, a gray chair
in front of it. A row of copper lids on the hood. To the right a simple table of
light-gray pine with three chairs and three stools, all gray. In the right wall
a door to jean’s room. Behind this, invisible for the spectators, a door to
kristin’s room. The kitchen is decorated with birch branches, the leaves
of which have just come out. To the left of the glass doors a speaking tube, a
copper water barrel with a ladle, a cupboard hiding a slop-pail and, invisible
for the spectator, a cupboard with porcelain and glassware. To the right of
the glass doors an icebox and a washstand concealed by a folding screen.
A large bell above the glass doors. A coffee pot on the stove. On the table a
newspaper and a bowl with violet lilacs.
This was a realistic kitchen, not unlike those to be found in Swedish castles
and manor houses around 1890.6 And it had a mood of Midsummer around
it. At the same time the stage was very functional with its different acting
areas: the exterior behind the windows, where prying people could be seen;
the stove (Kristin’,s working place); the chair in front of it (Jean’s place) with
the Count’s riding-boots in a dominant position downstage, indicative of
his presence in the minds of the three characters; the table for moments
of contact and equality; the hierarchical stairs, indicating social position
or position of power; the empty area between stove and table for Julie’s
moving around, a sign of her restlessness and feeling of being an outsider
in the kitchen.
When the performance began the stage was empty. There were natural-
istic touches in the opening. The audience could sense the smell of kidney
5 For some of the costume sketches, see Olofgörs, 1995: 210f. and Palmstierna-Weiss, 2013:
355f.
6 Cf. Edqvist/Ehnmark in Strindberg 1976: 103f. Palmstierna-Weiss’ stage model is reproduced
in Olofgörs 1995: 208.
42 The Serious Game
from Kristin’s frying-pan. And it could see how Jean, having danced wildly
with Julie, as soon as he had entered the kitchen wiped the sweat from his
forehead and rushed to the water barrel to quench his thirst.
His picking up the newspaper from the table and glancing at it prepared
for Jean’s later admission that it was newspaper reading that had provided
him with the story about a suicide attempt in an “oat-bin” which he had
earlier falsely ascribed to himself. Another directorial addition concerned
Jean’s table prayer, an illustration of his purely formal Christianity, a show
put on merely to satisfy his religious fiancée Kristin.
Jean wore low boots. When compared to the Count’s high riding-boots,
which Jean was supposed to polish, the low boots indicated not only Jean’s
lower social position but also his need to identify himself with his master,
his aspirations to make the low boots grow into boots or, as he himself says,
“end up a count.”
When the play opens Julie’s engagement has just been broken by her
f iancé. This happened in the stable yard and Jean witnessed it. When
describing this event Strindberg had originally written that the fiancé,
when Julie for the third time wanted him to jump over her riding whip,
“snatched the whip out of her hand and drew a weal across her left cheek”;
in accordance with this, the following speech, by Kristin, ended with: “And
that’s [added: why] she’s painting herself white now!” (Strindberg, 1964:
501). When B’s Jean related what happened in the stable yard, he swung the
low boot he had just taken off in the air and put it against his left cheek. A
costume piece was turned into a symbol of power.
Under the headline “Three wounds for Julie...” B writes about this passage
in the theatre program (Strindberg, 1985a: 2f.):
We may speculate why Strindberg has omitted such important and in-
formative words, words which provide the mood for the opening – Julie’s
rage and fear – and moreover explain why she has not gone with her
father to the relatives but has remained at home. When she appears out
of doors she covers the burning mark of humiliation with makeup. This
way it looks even worse. And in the dark corners of the barn the peasants
are guffawing while Julie, painted white like a furious little clown, swirls
round on the floor, first with the gamekeeper, then with Jean.
You can always speculate. For my part I believe it happened like this. Siri
von Essen, wife of the author and former actress, was promised the part at
the world premiere in Copenhagen. She was dismayed when she realised
that she was to apply a scar to her cheek and walk through the piece
painted white. She would, in short, look peculiar. […] Siri is disappointed;
she doesn’t want to show herself made up as a clown when at last she may
appear on the stage again. August is consoling […] and deletes the lines.
This is a dubious explanation for Strindberg’s deletion of the scar moti-

vated, I think, by B’s wish to exteriorise Julie’s split mind7 by providing
her with an ugly scar8 which in the beginning is hidden by a thick layer of
makeup. The white paint face would make her face approximate a skull,
that is, exteriorise her urge for death, explicitly stated in her wish to “bury
[her]self in the earth.” After the intercourse the makeup began to come
off. “When Jean deflowers her and she is bleeding, the scar on her cheek
starts to bleed, too. When Jean gives her this second ‘wound’ – her second
physical humiliation at the hands of a man – it destroys her” (B in Marker/
Marker, 1983: 15). To see the connection between the scar and the bleeding
the audience need to understand that it concerns deflowering – hence
virginity on Julie’s part – rather than menstruation. But deflowering was
never demonstrated whereas menstruation was indicated early in the play
when Kristin euphemistically stated that Julie had “got her monthly now.”
Drinking as a means of demonstrating (pretended) social status starts
already when Kristin wants to serve Jean beer, whereas he finds wine a
more suitable drink on festive occasions like Midsummer Eve. B’s Jean
embroidered further on this when the valet played the part of wine expert
with refined, aristocratic taste before Kristin; later the audience learnt–
what Kristin undoubtedly already knew–that his expertness in this area
stemmed from his time as sommelier at a hotel in Lucerne. Jean relapsed
into his earlier professional role when he filled his own wine glass the way
a waiter would, an ironical illustration of how difficult he found it to escape
from this stage in his past. The class distance between the betrothed couple
was indicated when Kristin handed Jean the wrong kind of glass, dried it
off on her apron and then sipped her coffee from a saucer, peasant fashion.
Julie’s handkerchief figures in several places in the text. When Jean,
alluding to the brew Kristin is cooking on the stove and for which Julie has
shown an interest, wonders if the ladies share secrets between them, Julie’s
answer is short and rebuking: “flips him in the face with her handkerchief.
Nosey!” But Jean, quick at repartee, parries:
7 Oliver (1995: 106) points out that the scar “visually establishes Julie’s vulnerability and
provides further motivation for the fear and loathing of men she exhibits during the course of
the play.”
8 The text never mentions directly what Julie looks like. Jean’s flattrering cannot be trusted.
When Vogelweith (1972: 84) writes that she is “belle,” he devotes himself, undoubtedly influenced
by stage Julies, to Hineininterpretierung.
44 The Serious Game
jean. Oh, what a lovely smell of violets!

julie. coquettishly. Cheeky! So you know about perfumes, too!
What was meant as a rebuke is turned into an erotic invitation. In passing

we are informed that the handkerchief is moistened with a violet-scented
perfume. Julie’s handkerchief-flipping is an early example of the combina-
tion between power manifestation and erotic enticement characterising her
in the early part of the play. When Jean later states that the “handkerchief
was dirty even though it smelt of perfume,” his disappointment after the
intercourse is obvious. When referring to the dirtiness of the handkerchief,
B’s Jean slapped Julie in her face with it; this was at the same time a revenge
for the flip she had earlier dealt him and a soft version of the wound the
fiancé had given her with his riding crop.
Kristin’s mime was shaped in quite another way than what is suggested
in the text. It began with her drinking out of Jean’s half-empty wine glass,
thereby making herself an accomplice in the stealing of the Count’s wine.
She then took out a Midsummer wreath of wild flowers, placed the wreath
on her head and smilingly looked in a table mirror, undoubtedly thinking of
her husband-to-be. Perspiring after a day’s work, she went on washing her
shoulders and breast with water from a bucket. In the immediate context
this washing meant that she made herself ready for the dance Jean had
promised her.
Kristin’s mime is supposed to cover the time it takes for Jean and Julie
to dance a schottische in the barn, in the performance replaced by a lan-
guishing waltz tune, more fitting as an intimate dance between two. To
break the monotony a long mime easily gives rise to, Kristin’s mime was
interrupted when Klara9 stole into the kitchen, picked a lump of sugar
from the chimney-piece, put it in her mouth and dashingly waddling her
hips approached Kristin, whispering something in her ear. Kristin reacted
violently by whipping Klara away with a towel. What Klara whispered could
be guessed; it no doubt concerned Julie’s wild dancing with Jean, something
that would make Kristin jealous.
When Julie orders Jean to kiss her shoe, the text informs us that he
first “hesitates, but then boldly grasps her foot, which he kisses lightly.” For a
modern recipient, used to more daring erotic behaviour, the situation seems
somewhat curious. But we have to realise that Strindberg’s Julie according
9 Nameless in the performance, this housemaid is here named after the text’s Klara. There
is an obvious connection between B‘s Klara and Kristin’s rival Viola in Alf Sjöbergs film Miss
Julie.
to the fashion at the time would keep her legs constantly hidden under a
long dress. To the spectators around 1890 the shoe kiss, which implied that
Julie pulled up her dress and showed part of her leg, was a daring erotic chal-
lenge. B’s handling of the shoe kiss agreed with his choice of retaining the
period suggested in the text–somewhat at the cost of the audience’s willing
suspension of their disbelief. In the seduction scene after the intercourse
B chose, as we shall see, to distance himself from 19th century eroticism,
thereby effectuating response instead of distance among the audience.
When Julie admonishes Jean “Come outside now and pick me some lilac,”
she has already breathed in the intoxicating scent of the lilacs on the table.
We soon get the following:
julie. I step down...

jean. Don’t step down, Miss Julie, take my advice! No one will believe
you did so freely; people will always say you fell down.
julie. I’ve a higher opinion of people than you. Come and try.–Come!
Her last “Come!” is followed by the role direction “She gives him a long, steady
look,” a look of sexual challenge. B had Julie at this moment come close to
Jean. Since she had earlier left the door to his room open, her “Come!” could
easily be understood as an invitation, not to pick lilacs but to enter his room,
a more obvious invitation to seduction.
When B’s Julie in a follow-up of the rise-fall theme told Jean about her
longing to fall, she turned away from him as she gave voice to what seemed
to be audible thinking. Both of them were looking down. Jean stood com-
pletely still as though he was the pillar in Julie’s dream of falling. Jean’s
dream of rising, by contrast, was communicated vividly. He was looking
and moving his hand upwards, dramatising his ambition to climb. Their
way of presenting their dreams in this way illustrated their contrasting
mentalities, her introvert, marked by death urge, his extrovert, marked by
life affirmation.
The handkerchief appears again in the text when Jean, on his way out into
the park with Julie, says he has got a speck of dust in his eye. True or not,
the situation brings the two physically closer, and Julie quickly makes use
of it. B’s Julie abstained from the handkerchief and tried instead with her
finger – more direct body contact – to remove the (supposed) speck of dust.
Shortly after this Julie teases Jean for resembling the Joseph who did
not let himself be seduced by Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 1: 39). He immediately
contradicts her in action: “jean boldly forward and tries to take her round the
waist to kiss her.” Although meant as a provocation, this boldness, moderate
46 The Serious Game
to a modern audience, seems rather a confirmation of her accusation. B

updated Jean’s action by having him really kiss Julie. As a result her reaction
when she “slaps him” was better motivated.
Jean’s story about how he as a boy once stole into the Turkish pavilion,
the Count’s outdoor toilet, relates to the main action of the play. Little Jean
was forced to escape through the latrine hole when he was surprised by
someone entering the toilet; for him, the trespasser, it was the only way
out. Similarly, Sprinchorn (1966: 22f.) points out, is forced to escape from
the kitchen into Jean’s room when the two are surprised by the Peasants
entering the kitchen’s only exit. In either case the only normal escape route
is blocked.
As Jean tells Julie about his visit to the Turkish pavilion, he holds one of
the lilacs from the bowl on the table under her nose. The smell of the lilac
figuratively takes away the latrine stench of the story. In reality it excites
Julie sexually; in the preface to the play Strindberg speaks of “the powerful
aphrodisiac influence of the flowers.” B let Jean and Julie handle the lilacs
in a way that foreshadowed their intercourse:
Jean. […] Gradually I was overcome by a longing Holds the lilac close to
julie’s half-open mouth. Once to experience the full delight of – Lets
the lilac drop, stands up. enfin, I... I crept inside, saw, and marveled. But
then someone is coming! julie picks up the lilac, smells it. There was only
one way out for the gentry, but for me there was one more, and I had no
choice but to take it.
A little later the lilac had been transformed from male member to riding
weal when Jean, pointing with it toward the glass doors, alluded to the
broken engagement in the stable yard.
The Ballet, showing the Peasants dancing into the kitchen, became in B’s
version a little play within the play. Instead of a whole crowd, the director
settled for three men and three women. In the text we find the following
socio-cultural triangles:
The Count married to the Countess – the brick merchant, her lover.
Jean betrothed to Kristin–Julie, his ‘mistress.’
Diana, Julie’s thoroughbred–the gatekeeper’s mutt, Diana’s ‘lover.’
Julie’s misalliance is preceded both by her mother’s unfaithfulness toward

her husband with a man of a lower social class and by her thoroughbred’s
copulation with a ‘proletarian’ dog. Jean’s unfaithfulness toward Kristin
for the noble Julie, mirroring Julie’s mother’s social rise when she married
the Count, is a step in the opposite direction. B filled out this socio-sexual
pattern by differentiating between the text’s Peasants, inserting several
levels between the cook and the animals:
Johan, clerk
Klara, housemaid
Lars, coachman
Sophie, scullery-maid
Nils, cow-tender
Anna, dairymaid
The six parts who were neither given names nor professions in the theatre
program-–only the names of the actors and actresses appeared there–-
-gradually entered the kitchen so that the audience had time to sense the
difference between them. Five of them sat down by the table, while the
sixth, Nils, roaring drunk, fell down on the floor. The relation Johan-Sophie
mirrored on a lower level than between Jean and Kristin, while Klara‘s
jealousy of Kristin was a low-stationed echo of Kristin’s jealousy of Julie.
Lars‘ relation to Anna signified both a social and a sexual misalliance.
B’s celebrating and prying “chorus” formed not only a contrast to the main
characters. In various ways it also visualised their actions and reactions.
Thus Lars’ and Anna’s faked intercourse mocked what (they assumed) was
happening in Jean’s room on the other side of the wall. Anna’s pregnancy
foreshadowed Jean’s and Julie’s fear of “the consequences” of their inter-
course. And Nils’ vomiting anticipated Julie’s after the intercourse.
The second stanza of the Peasants’ lampoon was omitted. In the remain-
ing two the obscenity which, as Strindberg remarks in the preface, is merely
implicit, was marked by a slow, mocking manner of singing. The line “One
was wet around her foot”–-in the performance “the foot” was replaced by
“the leg”-–was indicated kinetically when the drunken Nils put his leg in the
water barrel and, later, when Julie after the intercourse rubbed Jean’s sperm
from her leg. The Midsummer wreath that Kristin had earlier tried on her
head–-as though it was a bridal crown–-now adorned the sluttish Anna’s
head. In combination with the lampoon, “The bridal wreath I’ll give to you,
[…] But to another I’ll be true,” it underlined the theme of unfaithfulness.
B’s interlude clarified the Peasants’ lack of respect for their masters and
the inclination of the lower classes to steal on the sly from their superiors–-as
do Jean and Kristin. As Jean had earlier provided himself with the Count’s
burgundy, so now a bottle of aquavit, discovered behind the folding screen,
48 The Serious Game
was emptied by the already drunken crowd. The interlude, in other words,
indicated that the eroticism and drunkenness of the two main characters
had their counterpart among the common people. The folksy intermezzo
seemed to confirm Jean’s leveling statement that “at bottom there isn’t such
a big difference as one would think between people and people.”
Unlike Strindberg, B had Kristin enter the kitchen, woken up by the noise
of the Peasants, while they were still carousing there. But soon the intruders
were forced to leave the room, one after the other, driven out by Kristin’s
sheer glance. What had begun with mocking giggling ended with humble
sobbing. The last to give way was Klara, the leader of the group and Kristin’s
rival. On her way out of the kitchen she made a crude out-and-in movement
with her fingers suggesting copulation. In this way B’s Kristin was informed,
long before Strindberg’s, about what was happening in Jean’s room.
A fallen woman after the degrading intercourse, Jean accuses Julie of
having a dirty face. B made her wash herself in the very bucket Kristin had
earlier used to wash off her very real sweat of labour. Julie’s post-coital dirt
was figurative, recalling Jean’s dirty face after he had escaped through the
latrine hole.
When Jean’s sexual urge is again aroused, his flattering words and
gentlemanly behaviour serve to facilitate his seduction of Julie. We are
witnessing a piece of role playing. When Julie finally tears herself loose
from him, she does so because she senses his hypocrisy. In B’s version Jean’s
flattering of Julie was left intact, but his behaviour strongly deviated from
his gentlemanly behaviour in the text’s role directions. In the performance
he first caressed Julie’s breast, then kissed her neck and her breast, then
put his hand underneath her dress, and finally bent her backwards and
straddled her. There was an absurd discrepancy between his romantic flow
of words and his crude actions, determined by his sexual excitement. He
said that he could not be satisfied to be a mere creature to Julie but behaved
as though he was precisely that. Similarly, Julie’s hope that love would be
possible between them was coloured by her sexual heat. The text describes
a man attracted to a woman who can satisfy both his sexual urge and his
careerism, and a woman who seeks confirmation of love from her partner as
a consolation for their recent coupling. The performance more grotesquely
showed how their physical behaviour, governed by sexuality, contradicted
their words. What the audience witnessed was a hypocritical variation –
since human beings, unlike animals, have the power of language – of the
copulation between Diana and the gatekeeper’s mutt.
When Julie asks Jean if he knows “what a man owes a woman he’s
dishonored”–-hereby indicating that it is he who has taken the sexual
initiative–-he rejects her implicit reproach by pretending to understand

her literally:
jean opening his purse and throwing a silver coin on the table. Here you
are! I don’t want to be indebted!
Jean has earlier compared Julie’s sexual behaviour with that of “fallen
women.” Now he turns her into a prostitute–and himself into a buyer of
sex. B’s Jean put one coin on the table, then one more; a third coin in his
hand was, after some hesitation, put back in his purse. His hesitation as to
how much the intercourse could be worth 10 signified a strengthening of
the text’s cynical provocation.
While Julie provides herself with travel money up above in the Count’s
apartment Jean, now alone in the kitchen, “takes out a notebook and a pen;
does sums aloud now and then.” Presumably he is calculating the cost of
the journey to Lucerne. Returning with the travel money, B’s Julie put a
pack of hundred crown notes on the table. Jean looked fascinated at them,
as if he was hypnotised by them, and began to count them. His counting
continued while Julie – now standing in her long white travel dress a little
away from him faced the audience, as she was dreaming aloud of “childhood
memories of Midsummer days.” Rational concern for the future versus
nostalgic immersion in the past–-an echo of the antithetical dreams – were
mirrored in their contrasting occupations.
The money stolen from Julie’s father is needed for the escape to Switzer-
land the two are planning. There, Jean persuades Julie, they can begin a new
life. But when Julie wants to bring her beloved greenfinch Serine with them,
he protests and brutally beheads the bird. In the performance the beheading
of the greenfinch was naturally faked, done out of sight of the audience.
While the text’s Julie “turns away” when it happens, there was no need for
B’s Julie to do so, for the slaughtering in the background was invisible to her
who at this moment was downstage in a frontal position. More important
than Jean’s slaughtering of the bird was Julie’s visible reaction to it. She
held her lifted arms so that her position expressed both desperation and
protection from the mortal blow; in addition the spectator’s glance was
directed to her neck which was soon to be cut by her suicidal razor.
10 The device was repeated in B’s production of A Doll’s House three years later. It then
concerned Torvald Helmer’s portioning out pin money to his wife Nora. Here too the idea of
prostitution was evoked, this time within the marriage.
50 The Serious Game
One of the most enigmatic passages in the play concerns Julie’s atavistic
thirst for blood after Jean’s beheading of the greenfinch. About the man
she had just had intercourse with she now says: “I do believe I could drink
from your skull, I’d like to paddle my feet in your breast, and I could eat
your whole heart roasted!” Julie’s immense hatred of Jean after the killing
of little Serine, her alter ego, here seems to break forth untrammeled. Or
do we witness a regression to a more archaic stage marked by open fight
between the sexes? Whichever way we interpret this passage, there is a risk
that its grotesqueness appears comical to a present-day audience. With B,
instead of being an outburst of hatred, it became paradoxically a declaration
of love. Julie said her man-devouring words with great tenderness as she,
standing behind the seated Jean, caressed his shoulders and back. The split
within Julie – who both loved and hated her own father – was markedly
visualised.11 Nowhere in the performance was the discrepancy between
verbal language and body language greater than at this moment.12
The ending was done as follows:
jean in his black livery on the chair by the stove, sobbing. I believe if his
lordship came down now and ordered me to cut my throat, I’d do it on
the spot.
julie. Then let’s pretend you’re him, and I’m you. You acted so well just
now, when you went down on your knees. Then you were the nobleman.
Have you never been to the theatre and seen a hypnotist? He says to
his subject, “Take this broom!”, and he takes it. He says, “Sweep!”, and
it sweeps.
jean sobbing. But then the subject has to be asleep.
julie. I’m already asleep. Whispers. I’m already asleep.
The last speech was spoken by Julie with a firm voice and open eyes; the
impression was not at all that she was asleep, only that she wanted Jean
to believe this, so that he could continue his hypnosis. In this way Julie’s
11 A source of inspiration was possibly Per Olov Enquist’s drama The Night of the Tribades (1975),
in which Strindberg’s one-act play The Stronger is being rehearsed. Mrs X’s hateful outburst
against Miss Y is here acted as a declaration of love between the two women– against the
intentions of the author who is present. Their purpose is to marginalise and even exclude the
male (author).
12 This way of acting against the text was present in Enquist’s Copenhagen performance of
Miss Julie, less than three months before B’s production of the play in Stockholm, when at one
point Jean stood close to the seated Julie who leaned her head against his loin. Slowly rocking
back and forth, their body language contradicted their hateful words (Bredsdorff, 1986: 96).
strength was indicated. The following part of the hypnosis sequence, in

which Julie ecstatically experiences Jean as an iron stove, was deleted. The
sequence continued:
jean up to julie, fetches a mirror. Standing behind her he holds it in front

of her to show her how to hold the razor. Go now out to the barn. Whispers
in her ear.
julie. Thank you. Now I’m going to rest. But just tell me that the first
may also receive the gift of grace. Tell me that, even if you don’t believe
it.
jean. The first? No, no, no, I can’t do that! Up to the chair by the stove,
grabs the boots. But wait, Miss Julie, now I know. You’re no longer among
the first, you’re among the last.
julie. That’s true. I’m among the very last. I am the last. jean turns his
face away from her as she holds the razor against her neck. After a while
she lowers the mirror and sits down by the table. I can’t go. Tell me once
more that I must go!
jean. No, I can’t do that. I can’t!
julie. And the first shall be the last.
jean his face turned away, sobbing. Don’t think, don’t think! You’re tak-
ing all my strength from me julie’s head lowers. making me a coward.
She gradually shrinks. He suddenly looks at the bell by the glass doors.
I thought the bell moved. Shall we put paper into it? To be so afraid of
a bell. But it is not just a bell. Someone is sitting behind it. A hand sets
it in motion. Something else sets the hand in motion. Just cover your
ears, cover your ears! Then he rings even louder! Rings, rings until you
answer. Then it’s too late! And then the police comes... Two loud rings of
the bell. julie straightens herself up. Fiddle music in the distance. julie
gets up from the chair by the table. jean rushes out left, returns with a
lot of banknotes which he nervously lets fall on the floor, gathers them
together and stuffs them into julie’s pocket. It’s horrible but there is no
other end. In bent servile position. Go. julie slowly ascends the stairs,
turns around, opens one of the glass doors and backs out. As soon as
she is gone jean begins to sob. When two loud rings of the bell are again
heard, he gets up, takes up a pocket mirror and combs his hair. He picks
up the bird-cage and hastens out left with it. He returns to take the small
copper coffee pot from the stove, pours coffee from it into a silver pot.
Picks up the Count’s riding boots, puts them under his arm. Takes up the
silver tray with the silver pot, clicks his heels together, and marches out
left. Blackout..
52 The Serious Game
As appears from this transcription, B in addition to Strindberg’s role direc-

tions made an effective use of mirrors in the ending. The man in black was
seen closely behind the woman whose white dress “was reminiscent of a
shroud” (Palmstierna-Weiss, 2013: 355). In their costuming and with their
arms in virtually identical positions they were, in accordance with the mar-
riage service, no longer two but one.13 Instead of making Julie imagine that
the razor is a broom, as Strindberg has it, B let Jean hand her the mirror and
instruct her how to apply the killing cut. For Julie the mirror at this moment
signified a confrontation with her own self on the threshold of death, an
“as through a glass darkly” and “face to face” position14 starkly contrasting
with Jean’s turned-away head, his bodily denial that he had anything to
do with her mortal gesture. When Jean, in B’s added epilogue, took up his
pocket mirror to make himself presentable to the Count, his hiding behind
a social persona glaringly contrasted with Julie’s brave self-confrontation.
His behaviour at this moment was completely in line with his attempts to
disguise his share in Julie’s theft of the Count’s money when he crammed the
banknotes in her pocket; his removal of the bird-cage when they planned
their escape; and his suggestion that she commit suicide in the barn, far
away from Jean’s domain.
To B it was important that Julie’s decision to die should be seen as a
manifestation of strength. This is implied already in the text where it is
she who orders Jean to order her “to go” out to the barn to kill herself. By
deleting most of the hypnosis sequence, B could further tip the balance of
strength between Jean and Julie to her advantage. “From the moment she
accepts death, she is the stronger,” B declared in an interview given shortly
before the premiere. To this end Julie’s behaviour was substantiated in
various ways. Instead of letting Jean hand her the razor, as the text has it, B
let Julie pick it up herself. When the hypnosis passage was largely replaced
by the mirror sequence, it served to indicate that Julie consciously took her
decision. And when the director stressed Jean’s cowardliness, not least by
having him say his final “Go” not as a command but servilely, Jean’s active
share in her voluntary death was weakened.
Although Jean has the last line in the play, the attention in Strindberg’s
ending is directed toward Julie and her final exit. A director can choose to
13 Rosmer’s and Rebekka’s marriage-in-death at the end of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm may have
been a source of inspiration. However, B’s couple at this point seemed a very ironical variant
of Ibsen’s which, united by love, choose to die together. B planned to direct Ibsen’s play for the
Swedish radio in 2004 but withdrew.
14 Both the biblical source (1 Cor. 13:12) and B’s film titles derived from it were here relevant.
balance the two main characters and the alternatives they represent and let
the ending be a logical follow-up of their earlier demonstrated antithetical
dreams. This is what B did when he supplemented Strindberg’s ending with
a short epilogue, Jean’s concluding mime.15 Two contrasting types – the
inflexible versus the pliable, the idealist versus the realist – were pitted
against one another. Jean survived by returning to his earlier role. Julie,
unable or unwilling to do so, chose death.
Did B make Julie’s suicide credible? The critics were divided on this
matter. By setting the play in the fictive period suggested by the author, he
could at least do justice to the author’s idea in the preface that Julie “cannot
live without honor.” As important as to motivate Julie’s decision it was to
indicate that it was her decision. What was accentuated in B’s ending was
the diametrically opposed attitudes to life of the two main characters.
The critics were mostly very favourable. The production went on tour
to fourteen different places in Sweden. There were guest performances in
Madrid, Vasa, Reykjavik, Quebec, Spoleto, Edinburgh, Belgrade, Los Angeles,
London, Tokyo, Moscow and New York, in New York with another actress
(Lena Olin) in the title role.
15 B was not the first who provided the play with such an epilogue. In a TV version 1972, based
on a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Place in London the year before, the
play was concluded, much as B’s, by Jean’s pouring coffee into the Count’s coffee pot; with his
boots under his arm he left the kitchen.
4. August Strindberg, A Dream Play
With his pioneering A Dream Play Strindberg set the tone for the drama to
come. The play shows how the Daughter of Indra, the Indian god, visits the
earth in order to find out whether the complaints of humanity are justified.
As little Agnes, the daughter of a glazier, she takes human form. Stand-
ing before the beautiful “growing castle,” representing earthly life, she is
amazed at its beauty. In a series of scenes, she meets various representatives
of mankind, all of them suffering, yet hoping for a change for the better.
Many of them appear in the theatre corridor, like the world itself a place of
illusion. Three characters are prominent in the play: the Officer who end-
lessly keeps waiting in the corridor for his beloved Victoria, an opera singer;
the Lawyer who tries to help those who suffer injustices; and the Poet who
seeks to be in touch with higher, spiritual values. Married to the Lawyer,
the Daughter gives birth to a child. Feeling imprisoned with a husband who
does not share her needs, she escapes with the Poet, first to Foulstrand,
an earthly hell, then to Fairhaven – only to discover that suffering applies
there too. Back in the theatre corridor she witnesses how the four deans of
the university manage to get the door that is said to hide the riddle of the
world, opened – only to discover that there is nothing behind it. Back in
front of the growing castle, she witnesses how a number of the characters
she has earlier met sacrifice their most treasured properties to the fire.
Before entering the castle, now burning, to return to her heavenly Father,
she promises mankind to “bear their complaints to the throne.”
Loosely imitating the form of a dream to evoke the feeling that life is a
dream, the play lacks the traditional division of acts and scenes;1 also, there
is no list of dramatis personae.
When the play was first published it lacked the Prologue that was probably
added shortly before the world premiere in 1907. Since then the Prologue has
sometimes been included, sometimes excluded in performances. Quigley
(1985: 117f.) has convincingly argued that the Prologue “functions as part of
an explanatory frame for the action of the play, a means of orientating the
audience towards the subsequent action,” and that the awareness “of the
world beyond Earth, links the audience with the only character who shares
this double perspective, […] the Daughter of Indra.” Inclusion of the Prologue
means that the play is given a logical circle frame in imitatio Christi: when
1 In Strindberg’s notes, however, the play is divided into 3 acts and 14 scenes.
56 The Serious Game
it opens we witness the Daughter leaving her celestial domicile to begin

her earthly existence; when it closes she returns to her heavenly origin.
Reputedly the daughter of an Indian god,2 Agnes is an agnus dei, a female
Jesus. Being a divine creature, she is by definition different from all the
other characters in the play. This is indicated not least by the alienating
third-person form of her recurrent Det är synd om människorna, a phrase
meaning “Human beings are to be pitied” or – since it sounds very natural
and inconspicuous in Swedish – simply “Poor humanity!” The phrase could
also be taken to mean: “Human beings are rooted in sin.” The former, more
obvious, meaning implies that mankind is treated unjustly, by Indra/God.
The second, more disguised, meaning indicates that mankind is itself re-
sponsible for its situation. Both meanings are implied in the Prologue where
Indra’s negative view of humanity clashes with the Daughter’s defence of
it: “You judge them too harshly, Father.” And it is contained much later in
the Daughter’s question to Indra on behalf of humanity: “Is the fault theirs
/ Or Yours?” A kind of answer is given when she reveals to the Poet how “in
the dawn of time […] Brahma, the divine primal force, allowed Maya, the
world mother, to seduce him […] This contact between the divine element
and the earthly element was heaven’s fall from grace.”
The world, life, and humanity are, in other words, the result of a celestial
fall, preceding the human fall in the Garden of Eden that is significantly not
mentioned in the play, an indication that the balance is tipped in support
of mankind’s complaint about a wry world order. On the other hand, when
confronted with an extreme form of social injustice the Daughter defends
the situation as it is: “Has it never occurred to anyone that there might
be some hidden reason why things are the way they are?” At the end the
Daughter, ready to return to her heavenly Father, tells “the wall of human
faces, questioning, sorrowing, despairing” that she leaves behind on earth:
Farewell! Tell your brothers and sisters I shall remember them,

Where I now go, and their lament
I shall bear in your name to the throne.
She is not taking sides. It is strictly in the name of humanity, not in her
own, that she is simply forwarding a message. The question of guilt remains
unsolved.
2 Indra does not in fact have a daughter. Strindberg here took liberties with Indian mythology.
August Strindberg, A Dream Pl ay 57
It is a common misconception that in A Dream Play Strindberg is trying

to imitate a nocturnal dream3 – a formal interest – whereas, as mentioned
earlier, his striving was rather to imitate life, an ideological concern. To
do this he needed the fluid and often bizarre nature of the dream. Thus in
the play various properties take on a new look when they become part of
a new setting. Apart from being dreamy ‘dissolves,’ these transformations
serve to evoke a feeling that we cannot trust our senses and that human
understanding is limited. This is explicitly demonstrated in the three vi-
sions of the second Cave scene, where the Poet imagines that he sees a
ship, then decides that it is a house or a tower until, finally, he discovers
that it is a church. Gradually, his eyesight improves. Similarly, Strindberg’s
arrangement of scenery and properties time and again remind us that
our imperfect eyesight gradually improves, as when we discover that the
earthly paradise called Fairhaven is not Paradise; when we discover that the
four-leaf clover – representing luck and worldly success – that is found in the
mysterious door in the theatre corridor, when appearing in the door leading
to the sacristy in the church scene, is actually a cross, that is, the symbol of
suffering and sacrificial love; or when we realise that the Officer’s bouquet
of red roses, when withered, becomes a punishing rod and eventually turns
into the Lawyer’s “crown of thorns.” Vicarious suffering is the meaning of life.
In A Dream Play human life is described as a constant oscillation between
illusion and disillusion. What the characters hope for never comes true the
way they had hoped. The only hope that finally remains is the hope that
death means an awakening to a better existence. Will this hope come true?
Which theme could be more universal?
Olof Molander, who was the leading Strindberg director in Sweden for
decades, staged A Dream Play no less than seven times. As a converted
Catholic he was well attuned to Strindberg’s post-Inferno plays with their
belief in a higher Power ruling man’s life. B admired Molander’s Strindberg
productions. But since he did not share Molander’s faith and felt the need
to set himself off against his great predecessor, his four productions of A
Dream Play turned out to be rather different from Molander’s.
In Strindberg’s To Damascus the Stranger remarks: “there are moments
when I doubt that life has any more reality than my writing.” This was a key
to B’s four productions of A Dream Play, where Indra gradually disappeared
and was replaced by another creator, the writer of the play.
3 Freud’s Traumdeutung (1899) is often mentioned in this connection. But Strindberg was not
familiar with Freud’s work.
58 The Serious Game
In his four productions, B usually abstained from the Prologue arguing

that “it destroys the strange, bizarre self-evidence of the play opening”
(Röster i Radio, No. 17, 1963). By opening the play with little Agnes in front
of the growing castle B let his audience remain ignorant of Agnes’ divine
status until the dialogue revealed that she was “the god Indra’s daughter.” No
longer privileged recipients, the audience was on a par with the characters
in the play.
B’s first production of the play, in 1963, was made for television. With
its twenty-eight scenes and thirty-six actors and actresses, it was the larg-
est production undertaken to date by Swedish television. The production
opened with the ‘Author’s Note’ to the play superimposed on a cloud that
soon dissolved into a close-up of Strindberg’s face. Substituting Strindberg
for Indra and abstaining from the Prologue in Heaven, B immediately made
it clear that his performance was a fantasy on the part of the author, whose
link with the Poet in the play was clarified at the end when the Poet entered
a cloud which dissolved into a close-up of Strindberg’s face.
The idea that the author is the dreamer of the play returned in B’s first
stage production of the play at Dramaten in 1970, but with a variation.
The Poet was split into two characters: the Bard, representing the author’s
dreamed or idealised image of himself or of his public image, and the Poet,
his ordinary self. Similarly, and more in line with Strindberg’s idea, Indra’s
Daughter was split into two: the ideal Daughter and the earthly Agnes. The
Bard and the Daughter appeared briefly, shortly after the opening, where
they were posing like actors to an audience applauding them. In this produc-
tion, one critic commented, the play was “no longer about metaphysics but
about theatre” (Per Erik Wahlund in Kvällsposten), so much so that the
lighting equipment of the stage was fully visible.
In the grey light down on earth the characters gathered around the
Poet like shadows, then began a treadmill walk around the empty stage.
B’s adaptation, published in English (Strindberg, 1971), retained the fifteen
scenes that can be distilled out of the source text, but a number of refer-
ences to oriental religion, which are confusing to a modern westerner, were
omitted and the dialogue was condensed and rearranged. The Poet, present
on stage throughout, was constantly eavesdropping on his characters,
indicating that he was not only the creator of the text, but also the shaper
of the performance. In B’s reduced version there was no burning castle at
the end. The altar, not prescribed by Strindberg but usually figuring in
stage productions, was replaced by the Poet’s table, where the characters
sacrificed their attributes; that is, took leave of their roles in token of the
fact that they were merely products of the Poet’s imagination.
B’s third production of A Dream Play, in 1977, signified his debut as direc-
tor at the Residenztheater in Munich. The approach was similar to the one
in 1970. 4 Again, the play was presented as a product of the imagination of
the Poet seated at his desk. The realistic elements were emphasised at the
cost of the imagery of Strindberg’s text. Indra’s Daughter descended from
the ruin of a castle to the Poet surrounded by the characters of the play,
emanations of his imagination. The growing castle was assumed to be
placed in the auditorium and was consequently invisible.
Dissatisfied with his three productions of A Dream Play, B once more, in
1986, tried his hand at Strindberg’s seminal drama:
This time I wanted to play the text with no changes or deletions, just
as the writer had written it. My intention was also to translate the very
complicated stage directions into technically possible and beautiful solu-
tions. […] To achieve space and intimacy, we decided to remove four rows
of seats and extend the stage by five meters. In that way, we obtained an
outer room and an inner room. The outer room, nearest to the audience,
was to be the Poet’s domain with his desk by a multi-coloured art-nouveau
window, the palm with its coloured lights, the bookcase with its secret
door. To the right of the stage was a heap of rubbish dominated by a large
but damaged crucifix and the mysterious pantry door. In the corner, as if
buried in dusty junk, ‘Ugly Edit’ sat at her piano (B, 1989: 36f.).
As in B’s earlier versions, Strindberg’s parable about human suffering was

minimised to the Poet’s vision of this suffering. Yet shared by the audience,
his vision became objectified and universalised. By omitting the Prologue, B
abstained from the play’s metaphysical assumption and credo. Rather than
describing the situation on earth, the play became a description of how the
Poet experienced this situation, or even of how his world consisted of his
own characters, a solitary situation. The omission of the play’s religious
Prologue undoubtedly made B’s version more acceptable to the secularised
Swedish audience. The inspiration for this approach was apparently on the
one hand Strindberg’s subjectivism in his post-Inferno period, notably in
his To Damascus, staged by B in 1974, on the other Luigi Pirandello’s Six
Characters in Search of an Author, staged by B in 1953 and 1967. Both works
are characterised by an obliteration of the border line between illusion
and reality.
4 For a detailed comparison between the two productions, see Müller 1980.
60 The Serious Game
B’s intention to stage A Dream Play “just as the writer had written it” was
not fulfilled. A substantial amount of the text was deleted. Disliking the
elements of oriental philosophy in the play (Timm, 2008: 543), B omitted
the Daughter’s reference to the world as “a faulty copy” of the original while,
somewhat inconsistently, he retained her Indian account of the origin of
the world. References to Haroun the Just and the Flying Dutchman were
cut, presumably because they were regarded as sophisticated digressions.
The Poet’s central role was strengthened by having both the Officer and the
Lawyer abstain some of their lines to him. Each of Strindberg’s fifteen scenes
opens with extensive stage directions, usually of symbolic significance
(Törnqvist, 2011:144-158). These were virtually all ignored by B. Very impor-
tant – and most innovative – is the opening of the “flower-bud resembling a
crown” on the roof of the growing castle, which at the end of the play “bursts
open into a giant chrysanthemum.” As these stage directions indicate, the
whole play takes place within the time span from bud to flower.
In the production script the play is divided into the following twelve
scenes:
The apartment – The growing castle
The Officer’s prison cell
The childhood home
The theatre corridor
The Lawyer’s office
The degree ceremony
The [Lawyer’s] room
Foulstrand
Fairhaven
Fingal’s cave
The theatre corridor
The apartment – The growing castle
The localities could all be found in Strindberg’s text with one exception:
the apartment, the domicile of the Poet, the human creator-experiencer
of the play. As with Strindberg, the composition was circular. But instead
of a movement from heaven to earth, and back to heaven, Strindberg’s
Christ-like pattern, B’s development was horizontal, immanent, beginning
and ending with the Poet sitting at his desk – as if time had stood still. The
unity of the play was formed by the fact that everything emanated from a
single source, the Poet’s mind. By allowing the audience to share his mind,
his – man’s – normal mental isolation was transcended.
Like the Poet, Ugly Edith, to the right – the part immensely expanded
from the Foulstrand scene – remained on the stage throughout the per-
formance. Sitting at the piano she was responsible for the many musical
fragments: Bach’s Toccata in d minor, Chopin’s Funeral March, bits from
The Swan Lake, a waltz, a Kyrie, etc. In this way the whole performance was
framed, as it were, by words and music.
Indra’s Daughter/Agnes was this time split into three characters of dif-
ferent age: the little girl, the middle-aged mother, the ageing woman. The
stages in her life on earth became in this way more pronounced. Presumably
B hereby wished to emphasise how age-bound our view of life is, perhaps
also increase the sense of recognition on the elderly part of the audience
that always is in the majority at Dramaten.
Strindberg is capricious and on the whole negligent with regard to the
outward appearance of the characters in A Dream Play. This is true even of
the central figure. Only from the fact that she is the daughter of an Indian
god may we infer that she looks oriental;5 in that respect B’s dark Daughter
was not inauthentic. As for her costume, theatre tradition has favoured
white, black or grey long dresses, suggesting divinity, mournfulness or
earth-boundness (Törnqvist, 1988: 281ff.). In his fourth production, B’s
Daughter wore a long, dark-red dress, presumably indicating her compas-
sion for humanity, later covered with the Doorkeeper’s brown penitentiary
shawl, where “thirty years of anguish […] are hidden”; when the Daughter
had washed the shawl, it had significantly turned white.
Another prominent costume was the Officer’s elegant green frock coat.
The Billposter has longed all his life for a green fishing chest, but when
he gets it, he is disappointed because it is not quite the green colour he
had expected, not “that green,” an expression that has become proverbial
in Sweden. His longing, followed by disappointment, shared by all the
characters, is inveterately human. More explicitly than anyone else, the
Officer, who keeps waiting endlessly for his Victoria, incarnates this hope;
that is why B had him wear a green costume.
The performance opened with a single piano note, in C major. At the
end it petered out on the same desolate note. Between these a variety of
notes – harmonious and disharmonious, secular and religious – were heard.
Human life with its lonely beginning and lonely ending and variety in
between seemed imitated in this musical structure.
5 This was the case with the first actress who played the part, Strindberg’s ex-wife Harriet
Bosse. “You are from Java,” he used to tell her.
62 The Serious Game
As in 1970, B had chosen the following lines by Indra’s Daughter, re-

produced on the opening page of the theatre program, as a motto for his
production:
The earth is not clean.

Life is not good.
Men are not evil,
Nor are they good.
They live as they can,
One day at a time.
Sons of dust in dust they wander,
Born of dust
To dust they return.
The performance opened in darkness with a male voice reading these

lines. Was it the voice of Indra speaking from the high? When the lights
came up it appeared that the words were those of the Poet, seated at his
writing-desk. The lines, in other words, were not those of a divine character
but of a human being, at once singular and representative. The immanent
perspective had been established.
The prompt script gives a good idea of the opening:
The Poet is sitting at his desk. Lamp. Evening light. In the inner room
windows can be glimpsed. The clock is ticking. Ugly Edith is sitting to the
right, tuning the square piano. The Glazier shows up by the Jugend door
and starts repairing a window. Knocks carefully. The Daughter (a little girl)
appears by the desk and makes magic gestures. […] Transformation. Light.
Colours. Arpeggio. Joy. The Daughter happy!
A little later the Daughter, seen in the opening of the “magic door,” stated
that “The castle is growing....,” whereupon she ran inside. Meanwhile the
Poet, at his desk, was looking through his papers. The simultaneity indicated
that the Daughter was a product of his imagination.6 The growing castle
6 The situation recalls the one in B’s teleplay After the Rehearsal where the female characters
may be seen as emanations of director Vogler’s dreamy imagination. (He has fallen asleep at his
director’s desk.) The situation is repeated in B’s screenplay Faithless (2000) where an old man
named Ingmar Bergman is sitting at his desk. “His imagination conjures forth a young woman
[…], who appears behind him, half hidden by the door” (Steene, 2005: 349).
seemed located both behind the magic door and in the auditorium, in either
case only visible to the audience in their imagination.
Once inside the castle, the Daughter is determined to liberate its prisoner.
Strindberg’s stage directions read:
The Officer is sitting in on one of the chairs, wearing a highly unusual

modern uniform. He is rocking in his chair and striking the table with his
sabre.
The oddness of the uniform suggests the dreamy nature of the Officer. His
aggressive handling of the sabre expresses his displeasure with life. But his
rocking back and forth is a “movement without progress, action involving
repetition, not change” (Quigley, 1985: 128). The Officer’s attitude, it will
soon appear, is an aggressive variant of an attitude to life he shares with
his fellow-men. B provided the Officer with an old-fashioned, Swedish-
looking blue uniform with trousers he has long ago outgrown and a plumed
helmet; sitting on the floor he beat the carpet with his sabre. The symbolic
rocking movement was replaced by the more easily understandable idea
that the Officer was a child masquerading as a grown-up, an idea – often
expressed in B’s work – in line with the Daughter’s reference to mankind
as människobarnen (the human children).
The mysterious door in the theatre corridor plays a central role in the play.
The door has an air-vent in the form of a four-leaf clover, the symbol of luck.7
No one has ever seen the door open. The Officer, reminded of the pantry of
his childhood, asks himself what may be behind the door. At the insistence
of the Daughter, the door is finally opened. Behind it is – nothing. That is to
say: those looking behind the open door see nothing. Disappointed they ask
the Daughter why she wanted the door to be opened. She enigmatically tells
them: “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it!” The Daughter has apparently
wanted to demonstrate to mankind that opening the door is meaningless
since they would be unable to see what is behind it. The moral seems to
be that man should not seek to understand what he cannot understand.8
Nevertheless a kind of answer is given when the door later is seen in a new
visual context, in the church. The four-leaf clover now looks like a (Maltese)
7 A penetrating analysis of the door symbolism is found in Bennich-Björkman, 1971: 65-73.

8 Hamlet, Strindberg writes, “wants to know what one is not permitted to know; and because
of arrogantly wanting to know God’s secrets which have a right to remain secrets, Hamlet is
punished by a kind of madness called scepticism, which leads to absolute uncertainty, and out
of which the individual can be saved only by faith” (Strindberg, 1967: 102).
64 The Serious Game
cross. The symbolism of the air-vent hereby changes. Not luck but suffering
is the meaning of life. At the same time the cross, like the four-leaf clover,
stands for hope but of another kind, hope for a better future in another
world. “O crux ave spes unica” (Hail to the Cross, our only hope), as it says
on many Catholic gravestones as well as on Strindberg’s. Synchronised
with the change from clover-leaf to cross is the change of the Officer’s red
roses which, when withered, become a rod and reminiscent of the wreath
of thorns that is placed on the head of the vicariously suffering Lawyer.
B retained the rose symbolism but obscured the cross symbolism by not
showing the church setting in the promotion scene where this symbolism
would have been apparent.
The degree ceremony presupposes some familiarity with this academic
Swedish ritual at which every doctor of the last academic year receive their
insignia from the dean of the faculty in question while at the same time a
salute is being fired. Strindberg has the Officer wonder, when “the sound
of church bells is heard,” if there is “a funeral in town.”
lawyer. No, they are conferring degrees, doctor’s degrees. And I am just
about to go and receive my doctorate in law! Perhaps you would like to
graduate too and get a laurel wreath?
The Officer, who has done nothing to deserve the degree, happily agrees.
After he has been laureated, the Lawyer in the last minute is refused his
laurel.9 The scene was done as follows:
Ringing of church bells. Chopin’s Funeral March is heard. An old ph. d.

candidate walks up to the dean, receives his laurel wreath from him.
Cannon shot. The officer walks up to the conferring dean, receives
laurel wreath. Cannon shot. He takes off the wreath and waves victoriously10
with it. The lawyer in, takes off his outdoor clothes and galosches. Music
stops. He walks stiffly in his tailcoat toward the dean, passes the king
and queen in their ermine robes and with crowns on their heads, stops,
drops his trousers, revealing his long drawers. Those present hold their
noses and sniff, one or two laugh. He pulls up his trousers, walks stiffly up
9 A Swedish Doctor of Law is crowned with a doctor’s hat, not with a laurel wreath. Strindberg
obviously wished to provide a link between the laurel wreath and the crown of thorns, a parallel-
by-contrast retained by B.
10 As if he has now found his Victoria. The name indicates the true nature of his love. But his
victory is short-lived; very soon he is back in primary school and must learn to “mature.”
to the deanwho holds a laurel wreath above his head but suddenly puts
it away. All turn their backs on the lawyer. Headed by the royalties
everyone exits.
The use of Chopin’s Funeral March was a loan from Molander (Bark, 1981:
156). The nose gesture of the attendants suggested that the Lawyer was
smelling badly, either because, as he had earlier revealed, his clothes would
“stink of other people’s crimes” or because at this moment, he had been
unable to withhold his stool.11
Behind the upheld laurel wreaths the Crucified Christ with his crown of
thorns could be seen. The Lawyer, rejected by society he had tried to serve
and left alone in the church, was approached by the Daughter. She took
the crown of thorns from the Crucified, put it on the Lawyer’s head as if
promoting him, and said: “I’ll give you one that will be more becoming!” It
was at this moment that the Daughter decided to marry the Lawyer.
For the Lawyer’s room, where the central marriage scene takes place, the
production script prescribes:
Faint music from a barrel-organ. Courtyard exterior. The bed dominates.

Blood-red cover. Cushions and torn sheets. Daughter hanging by the chief
end – unkempt and with stained linen. The bed of the child is glimpsed.
Kristin on a ladder is pasting. Stove with cooking utensils.
The utterly earth-bound Kristin was wholly dressed in grey. Strong searing
white light on the bed made it stand out from the surrounding darkness. The
Daughter, her arms raised as if “crucified to the bed-posts” (Andréason in
Göteborgs-Posten) seemed imprisoned in the bed with its iron ‘bars.’ When
the Lawyer joined her there the bed became the cage of their marriage.
Liberation came when the Officer entered and strew the red roses he had
earlier reserved for Victoria over the bed. Along with him the Daughter
escaped first to Foulstrand, then to Fairhaven – only to discover that an
earthly hell did not fundamentally differ from an earthly paradise, suffering
being their common denominator.
For Fairhaven, B’s stage directions in the production script read:
Everything white. Silent snowfall. Beautiful waltzing in the background.

The Gentleman and the Lady are sitting glutted. Children in summer dress
11 The dropping of the trousers may be seen as a visual pun on Swedish byxångest (lit. trouser-
anguish), the ultimate humiliation.
66 The Serious Game
are throwing ball. Ugly Edith is sitting, bare-headed, mournful, with bushy,
disheveled hair. In front of her an open piano. Strong sunlight. Black sky.
The children were omitted in the performance. As in the 1970 production,

all the dancers were dressed in white. Indicating the season and relating
to the wreath symbolism, they wore Midsummer wreaths on their heads.
The Daughter instead wore a modern red cap, a remnant of her earlier red
dress. Strongly contrasting with the rest was the Quarantine Master from
Foulstrand, a diabolic figure “dressed as a black-a-moor” (Strindberg) with
a painted black face. Admonishing everyone to “dance before the plague
breaks out,” he played a dirty trick on one of the dancers before escaping
with her. The silent dancing of the dancers turned them into dreamlike
puppets. Their waltz was eventually, as with Strindberg, drowned by Ugly
Edith‘s playing of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue, No. 10.
After A Dream Play had been completed, Strindberg added a scene which,
unlike all the others, is geographically located. The scene shows
a beach on the Mediterranean. In the foreground to the left there is a white

wall over which orange trees in fruit are visible. In the background villas and
a Casino with a terrace. To the right, a huge pile of coal and two wheelbar-
rows. Upstage right, a strip of blue sea.
Two coalheavers, naked to the waist, their faces, hands, and the exposed
parts of their bodies blackened, are sitting on their wheelbarrows in despair.
The daughter and the lawyer enter from the rear.
daughter. This is paradise!
first coalheaver. This is hell!
second coalheaver. Forty-eight degrees in the shade!
first coalheaver. Shall we take a dip?12
second coalheaver. We can’t. The police will come! Bathing’s forbidden
here!
first coalheaver. What about picking a fruit from the tree?
second coalheaver. No, then the police will come!
The Daughter’s initial line is motivated by the fact that she sees only the
aristocratic part of the scenery up left. She is immediately contradicted by
the blackened First Coalheaver down right. In two lines, assisted by the
scenery, the class society has been demonstrated.
12 The Swedish line is ambiguous and can also mean: “Shall we drown ourselves?”
In B’s production, the Coalheaver scene was integrated into the Fair-
haven scene, that is, transposed from the Mediterranean environment to
Anywhere. The stage directions and the opening lines just quoted were
eliminated. Instead the audience witnessed how the white-dressed dancers
were frozen in their movements when the blackened Coalheavers, opening
a lid in the floor, suddenly appeared from below with their coal sacks.
Strindberg’s stark class contrast between lethargic vacationers and hard-
working proletarians was retained but, with a stage devoid of scenery, it
was expressed mainly in contrasting character appearance.
The two Fingal’s Cave scenes in Strindberg’s play were reduced to one.
For this scene the stage directions in the production script read:
Writing-desk. Evening lamp. The Poet is arranging Fingal’s Cave, hands the
Daughter some manuscripts. Both first read silently. He has dressed her in
an Oriental shawl and puts the wreath of thorns on himself before the mirror.
The scene in Fingal’s Cave became a parodic piece of theatre-within-the-

theatre. The Poet, in a blue gown and a laurel wreath coquettishly slanted
on his head, and the Daughter, in a shimmering long red dress, read their
parts aloud from the manuscript in an uninspired and amateurish manner
as if alienating themselves from what they were reading. Their recital was
done to the accompaniment of an old-fashioned record player and in front
of a projection of Böcklin’s famous painting Toteninsel.13
In the closing scene, where we are back in front of the castle, Strindberg
calls for a fire to which the Daughter offers her shoes, the part of her closest
to this world of dust. Following her example, the other characters, one after
the other, sacrifice their emblems to the fire. As in his earlier versions, B
instead had the characters, Pirandellian fashion, return their emblems to
the Poet. Here are three of them in Strindberg’s version:
quarantine master enters. A small contribution, the black mask which

made a blackamoor of me against my will. Exits.
victoria enters. My beauty, my sorrow! Exits.
edith enters. My ugliness, my sorrow! Exits.
13 Böcklin’s Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead), which is projected at the end of Strindberg’s The Ghost
Sonata, was never used in any of B’s four productions of that play. He found it “a horrible piece
of art” although he “liked it a lot as a child”; a reproduction of the painting was hanging in his
paternal home (Törnqvist, 1973: 226).
68 The Serious Game
All three abstain from what has been most painful to them. Suffering is
universally inherent in human life. Inspired by the Quarantine Master’s
mask, B let also the two women abstain from masks, their outward persona.
When the Quarantine Master removed his black mask, he surprisingly
revealed an identical black face underneath it. Did it mean that his hope
that his persona would be totally different from his inner nature was an
illusion? Did it mean that his face had become another mask, just as the
Lawyer’s face? The text says, “reflects all the kinds of crimes and vices in
which his profession has necessarily involved him.” Whatever the audience
could make of it, this sudden mystery seemed to disturb Strindberg’s idea
that all the sacrificing characters, despite their various emblems, form a
chorus testifying to universal suffering.
As the Daughter took farewell of her human children, they all kneeled
before her. When she entered the burning castle, there was a strong searing
light silhouetting the human figures left behind as black shadows. This was
followed by darkness when they disappeared from the stage. At last one
and the same piano note as was heard in the beginning was struck, a note
which, like human life, was doomed to peter out.
Much of the performance was recognisable to those who had seen B’s 1970
production of A Dream Play, which B in hindsight regarded as the best of his
four stagings of the play (Sjögren, 2002: 339). This may have been one reason
why his fourth attempt was somewhat lukewarmly received. Bengt Jahnsson
in Dagens Nyheter was outright negative. “If the Prologue disappears,” he
wrote, “the initial magic disappears.” Lisbeth Larsson in Expressen found
that Lena Olin as Agnes had the “optimistic matter-of-factness” of a child,
but Sverker Andréason in Göteborgs-Posten found her “stereotype.” B himself
later declared that she “was no Indra’s Daughter, not a bit” (Timm, 2008: 543).
The scene in Fingal’s Cave was unanimously criticised. B himself afterwards
found it abortive; referring to his handling of this scene, he admitted that
his attempt to make a joke of what to him were “unbearably high-flown bits
of trash” in the play did not work (Timm, 2008: 543). Rather exceptional was
Tomas Bredsdorff‘s enthusiastic review in Politiken, ending with the words
“a scenic masterpiece.”
5. William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Hamlet is presumably the world’s most widely read, performed, and analysed
drama. Yet nobody knows the authentic text. The play has survived in a
corrupt version known as the Bad Quarto, in a much better version known
as the Good Quarto, and in yet another, quite good version published in
the First Folio. As a result current editions of the play reveal a number of
differences (Wells, 1970: 5f.). The Swedish translation used by B is by Britt
G. Hallqvist and based on Harold Jenkin’s edition (Shakespeare, 1982).
Hamlet is a very long play even by Shakespearean standards. As a result
it is always shortened in performance. In B’s version a little more than
1/3 of the text was deleted (Steene, 2005: 689). Once more, the deletions
were indicated in the theatre program. Of the characters, Volteman and
Cornelius, messengers to the King of Norway, were omitted, as was Polonius’
servant Reynaldo, the Second gravedigger, and some other minor figures. A
Courtier serving Ophelia was also changed to a Lady in waiting.
At a meeting shortly before the dress rehearsal of A Dream Play in April
1986, B outlined the scenery for his planned Hamlet production: an “empty
stage, possibly two chairs, but not necessarily. Stationary lights, no coloured
filters, no special atmospherics. A circle, five meters in diameter welded
into the floor, close to the audience. Here the action takes place.” In the
actual production a circular acting area was outlined on the stage floor.
This area was contained within a greater circle, circumscribing almost the
whole stage (Marker/Marker, 1992: 261f.).1
The performance opened with three curtains, Dramaten’s ordinary
red one, followed by a replica of it, this again followed by a black cur-
tain, foreshadowing the two dominant colours of the performance and
a reminder that theatre is “not just for pleasure,” the device of the Royal
Theatre in Copenhagen, copied on the trestle stage used later in the play-
within-the play, the mouse trap scene. The red curtains were accompanied
by romantic piano music, the famous waltz in Franz Lehár’s operetta
The Merry Widow.2 The music was an ironic glance at Gertrude, Hamlet’s
mother, recently widowed and now remarried to Claudius, the brother and
successor of Gertrud’s former husband, old King Hamlet. When the black
1 Cf. Kott’s view (1964: 71) in his chapter “Hamlet of the Mid-Century”: “We will try to break
with nineteenth-century naturalism, and be content with a back-cloth, rostrum and two chairs
on either side of the stage.”
2 Staged by B at the City Theatre in Malmö in 1954.
70 The Serious Game
curtain appeared the music stopped abruptly and was replaced by the
sound of strong wind. The audience was in this way suddenly transposed
from red to black, from merry-making to the relief of the guard at night
outside Elsinore castle.
Shakespeare’s five-act play opens with the Ghost scene. Francisco, one
of the sentinels, is relieved of his watch by Bernardo, another sentinel. A
third sentinel, Marcellus, enters with Horatio, prince Hamlet’s friend. The
sentinels inform Horatio that they have twice seen the Ghost of old King
Hamlet, Hamlet’s recently dead father. When the Ghost appears again, he
discloses to Hamlet that he has been murdered by his brother Claudius,
now his successor to the throne. He asks Hamlet to avenge him.
Is the Ghost real or imagined? The scholars disagree about this. Some
argue that since not only Hamlet, but also Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio
see the Ghost, it must be real; in the cellar scene (I.5) they even hear the
Ghost when it admonishes them to swear on their swords. Other scholars,
who believe that only Hamlet hears the Ghost in the cellar scene, point
out that the Ghost addresses only Hamlet both in the opening and later (in
III.4) when Hamlet is alone with Gertrude; from this they conclude that the
Ghost is a hallucination on his part.
What concerns us here is what the spectators of B’s Hamlet made of his
Ghost. B eliminated the cellar scene, thereby strengthening the contrast
between Hamlet and the other characters with regard to the Ghost. In his
version there were the following gradations:
Bernardo, Marcellus, Horatio see the Ghost.

Hamlet both sees and hears the Ghost.
Gertrude neither sees nor hears the Ghost.
As the son of King Hamlet, Hamlet obviously had a special relationship

to the Ghost, increased by the fact that the Ghost had an urgent message
to him: the revelation about the nature of his death. To the two sentinels
the appearance of the Ghost, although they recognised old King Hamlet
in him, was either an ominous sign that the King could not find rest in his
grave or, more widely, that the time was “out of joint,” to quote Hamlet. That
Gertrude was unaware of the Ghost was hardly surprising; feeling extremely
guilty toward her son at this point not only because of her over-hasty mar-
riage with Claudius but also because of Claudius’ fratricide that had been
imitated in the play-within-the-play she had just witnessed, she had every
reason to repress whatever was connected with her former husband; she
was psychologically blind to the Ghost.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet 71
If a director would choose not to visualise the Ghost in the closet scene
between Hamlet and his mother, the audience would easily agree with
Gertrude’s remark that Hamlet is mad. If the Ghost is visualised, as was the
case with B, they would be less certain. The same goes for the initial Ghost
scenes. In either situation, the mere fact that B’s audience shared Hamlet’s
experience, made the Ghost, as it were, real.
In Act I.1 the Ghost first appeared from the auditorium in the form of a
sudden strong light on Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio, seated downstage,
facing the audience. When they turned their backs to the audience, a white
light spot far upstage indicated that the Ghost was now to be found there,
this time seen also by the audience – as if both they and the characters were
in a cinema.3 Separated vision had become shared vision.
Hamlet’s experience of the Ghost was gradual. Surrounded by darkness,
studded by white spots as a nocturnal heaven is by stars – visualising man
and the universe – he was looking around, searching for it. Then the Ghost
entered, dressed in a big white robe. In his prompt script B asks himself:
“How does one react when meeting one’s father as a ghost,” and, referring
to the Ghost, “what does someone look like who has spent two months in
purgatory?” Rather than Shakespeare’s warlike Ghost in armour B’s audi-
ence was confronted with a peaceful spirit, dressed as he might have been
when he was killed while taking a nap in his garden.
Hamlet was inside the inner circle which at this point signified the limit
of this globe, this life.4 When the Ghost began to tell Hamlet about the mur-
der, they joined hands above the delimiting circle. The joined hands were
strongly lit from above. When the Ghost finished his story about the murder
with “O horrible! most horrible!” their hands separated whereupon Hamlet
again took hold of the Ghost’s hand. Then both stood up and embraced. “A
pact had been sealed” (Marker/Marker, 1992: 265).5
In Act I.2 we are inside the royal castle. King Claudius announces to his
Councilors that Volteman and Cornelius are to be sent to King Fortinbras
of Norway, to persuade him to prevent young Fortinbras, his namesake
3 Cf. B’s description of the cinema viewer, hypnotised by “the white spot” in front of him or
her (Timm, 1994: 147).
4 The Ghost, it says in the prompt script, “tries to get inside the circle but is always pushed
back. […] Hamlet stretches out his hand outside the circle. The Ghost gets hold of the outstretched
hand. Now Hamlet is definitely and finally changed.”
5 The implied reference is to Don Juan’s fatal handshake with the Stone Guest in Molière’s Don
Juan, three times staged by B. Faust’s pact with Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust also comes to
mind – as does the Old Man’s pact with the Student in Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata.
72 The Serious Game
and nephew, from threatening Denmark with military action. This is the
official reason for the meeting.
B was not interested in this political aspect. He eliminated both the
messengers and their message. With him the scene began quite differently,
with a scream. Lustful? Deadly? Whose? It quickly appeared that it was the
salacious scream of Claudius, vaguely seen upstage, running after Gertrude,
both dressed in imperial red robes. Rolling across the floor to centre-stage
they were united in coitus a tergo. When they stood up a row of Counselors
in red robes and white wigs formed a semi-circle behind them; ‘directed’
by Polonius, in a fur-edged robe, they mechanically applauded the royal-
ties after their perversity. Through this bizarre image the audience was
immediately introduced to the “rotten state of Denmark.”
Hamlet entered and sat down on a chair centre-stage; facing the audi-
ence he significantly turned his back to Claudius. Mourning his father,
his (traditional) black appearance strikingly differed from the redness
of the court behind him. With his turtleneck sweater, trousers, raincoat,
shoes, and sunglasses he could have been one of the young men in the
audience. This was Hamlet as Everyman. At this point in the play he had
not yet heard about the Ghost. Nonetheless, it was disturbing to him to hear
Claudius speak of his mother as “our former sister-in-law, now queen.”6
For a long time he remained immobile in a limp position, his eyes turned
down, his face expressionless. This caused the King to ask why “the clouds
still hang” on him. To which Hamlet protested with a line drawing at-
tention to his sunglasses: “Not so – I get too much sun here.”7 Polonius
at this uncomfortable answer ordered the Councilors to turn their backs
on the controversy between Hamlet and the King, only to order them to
turn around again when the King called himself “a father” for Hamlet and
declared that Hamlet was “nearest to the throne.” Official statements were
separated from unofficial ones in this very concrete form of censorship led
by the court’s propaganda minister. When the King blandishingly addressed
Hamlet as “our son,” the King and the Queen were seen at either side of him,
as if forming a trinity, the Queen kneeling and caressing her son.8
6 The original has “our sometime sister,” which more clearly alludes to the fact that the
marriage to Shakespeare’s contemporaries was incestuous (Kitto 1964: 257).
7 The original here has “I am too much in the sun,” where the last word is an untranslatable
pun on ‘son.’ B replaced this verbal pun with visual imagery: the sunglasses that would protect
Hamlet from the ‘sun’ of King and court.
8 Cf. the family grouping of stepfather-mother-son in Fanny and Alexander, where the
stepfather-bishop corresponds to Claudius, Emily to Gertrude and Alexander to Hamlet.
Left alone by the court Hamlet gave vent to what ailed him: “O that this
solid flesh of shame would thaw, melt.”9 The soliloquy was preceded by a
violent scream as if Hamlet was suffocating. Spot-lit, he was now surrounded
by darkness. When referring to his father – “a king as brilliant as Apollo”
– he looked at a miniature portrait of him in his hand. When referring
to Claudius – that ugly “satyr” – he looked to the left where the King had
recently disappeared.
The soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Horatio along with
Marcellus and Bernardo. Even more than with Shakespeare, B’s Horatio was
conceived as Hamlet’s bosom friend since their time at the University of
Wittenberg. They were both of the same age, around 33.10 Unlike but related
to Hamlet’s all-black appearance was Horatio’s all-in-grey: grey student
blazer with a Wittenberg crest, grey trousers, stiff collar, shirt-front, grey
overcoat, grey gloves, grey bowler hat, black shoes with grey gaiters, cane,
pince-nez; in short, a bourgeois dandy from the end of the 19th century.
Following the original, Hallqvist had Horatio address Hamlet with “my
prince” and with the formal “ni” (corresponding to French vous). B stressed
his close friendship with Hamlet by changing the former address to “my
friend,” the latter to the intimate “du” (corresponding to French tu). The
two men embraced several times; Hamlet jokingly at one point placed
Horatio’s hat on his own head; toward the end he rested on Horatio’s lap;
and once they even mouth-kissed. Especially the last caused some critics to
see them as a homosexual couple. With this in mind Hamlet’s harsh attacks
both of Gertrude and of Ophelia made sense. However, seeing Hamlet as a
homosexual necessarily would disturbingly overshadow the primary reason
why he reacted as he did to the two women: the impact of his mother’s hasty
remarriage. It seemed more meaningful to regard B’s Horatio as Hamlet’s
constant grey shadow, his more balanced alter ego suppressed through the
recent events. This would be a less realistic, more figurative explanation
for the bodily intimacy between the two men, an intimacy shared by two
other male couples: the Ghost and Hamlet – father and son – and, as we
shall see, Hamlet and the First Player.
Act I.3 opens with Laertes’ leave-taking from his sister Ophelia. He is
about to leave for Paris. B had Ophelia enter with a wreath of flowers on
9 Hallqvist’s version of “O that this too sullied flesh would melt…”, was a subtle combination
of different readings of the key word, ‘solid,’ ‘sullied’ or ‘sallied.’
10 The text sometimes suggests that Hamlet is around twenty, at other times that he is around
thirty (Bradley, 1963: 344ff.). B wanted Hamlet to be played by someone around thirty (Duncan/
Wanselius, 2008: 553).
74 The Serious Game
her head, barefoot and dressed in a light-blue shift, Laertes a little later
with a chest, a piece of a travel equipment indicating that he was about
to leave. Ophelia put the wreath on his head. They kissed and embraced.
When Polonius appeared, now in a black suit, grey waistcoat and with a
brown briefcase – the busy civil servant – Laertes, ashamed of his inti-
macy with his sister, hid the wreath behind his back. Whereupon Ophelia
helped him by taking it from him and coquettishly putting it back on her
own head. The little scene stressed the genuine love between brother and
sister as well as their obedience to their father’s chilly paternalism. The
spontaneous normality of their relationship implicitly contrasted with the
Hamlet-Ophelia relationship.
In Act II.1, Ophelia, rushing to Polonius and kissing his hand, tells him
about Hamlet’s recent strange behaviour, in Hallqvist’s translation:
As I sat sewing in my closet

prince Hamlet entered with his coat slit open,
and without a hat.11 And the stockings
hanging foul’d, ungarter’d
around his ancles like shackles.
His face as white as his shirt,
his knees clearly shaking.12
In the performance this was changed to:
As I sat sewing in my closet

prince Hamlet entered with his shirt slit open,
and without shoes.
His face gray as ashes.
“Without shoes” – like B’s barefoot Ophelia, whose hair was now disheveled,
an early sign of her inner bewilderment. Polonius ‘consoled’ her with a pat
on her head and a push against her cheek when he asked her if she had not
been too harsh with Hamlet. (It was in fact Polonius himself who had told
her to ask Hamlet no more to see her.)
11 It was normal among the Elizabethans to wear a hat also indoors (Shakespeare, 1982: 234).
12 Cf. the original: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, – with his doublet all unbraced,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,
Ungarter’d and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other.
From now on Ophelia began to move along the stage floor circle in the
background. Off and on she stopped her peripheral circling as if, compas-
sionate but powerless, she sensed the terrible things happening around
her. It worked the other way too. “She was on the mind of all the other
characters,” B told Sjögren (2002: 181).
In Act II.2, Hamlet asks the First Player to recite a passage about Hecuba’s
response to the death of her husband, King Priam. We learn that Hecuba’s
grief was profound:
Alas, he who has seen his [Priam’s] queen half-dressed,

barefoot run around, blinded by tears
in her attempt to quench the flames
[...]
with a sheet she has grabbed
in wild panic around her thin loins
[…] – he who this had seen
would surely have thrown
curses in revolt ‘gainst fate.13
To Hamlet, Hecuba responded in a natural way to her husband’s death,

Gertrude did not. B’s counterpart of Hecuba was Ophelia. Her reaction
to the calamities around her, for her culminating in Hamlet’s murder of
her father Polonius, was like Hecuba’s. Echoed in Ophelia’s behaviour, the
passage was firmly tied to the action of the play. Hamlet even identified
himself with Hecuba when later, alone, he wrapped himself in the yellow
cloth the actors had left behind, entered the trestle stage and asked himself:
“What’s Hecuba to him [the actor playing the part], he to her / that he can
weep like that?” The actor’s intense compassion for a fictive Hecuba was
here contrasted with Hamlet’s own indifference to her ‘real’ counterpart,
Ophelia.
13 Cf. for intelligibility the original which reads:

But who – ah, woe! – had seen the mobbled queen
[…]
Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
With bisson rheum […] and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o’erteemed loins
A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up –
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.
76 The Serious Game
The most well-known part of Hamlet, the soliloquy beginning “To be or

not to be,” occurs in Act III.1 after the King and Polonius have planned to
overhear Hamlet’s conversation with Ophelia in order to find out what the
reason for his strange behaviour could be. Is it depression after his father’s
sudden death or is it unrequited love for Ophelia? B moved the soliloquy to
the next scene and had Hamlet utter it to the First Player:
hamlet, dagger in hand, embraces the first player, then mock-stabs him
in the back with the dagger while quietly laughing to himself.
To be or not to be, that is the question
if it is nobler patiently to suffer
the blows and arrows of a horrid fate or
to take arms against a sea of torments
and resolutely kill them? To be allowed to die –
sleep, His hand against the first player’s heart. no more […] ‘twould be
an end, a mercy quietly to be prayed for.
The change from soliloquy to monologue enabled B’s Hamlet to dramatise

the speech. The First Player could here be seen as Hamlet’s alter ego who
was figuratively stabbed as a sign that suicide was on Hamlet’s mind. In
another sense he could be seen as a stand-in for Claudius whom Hamlet
wanted to kill. Since the actor doing the part of the First Player could be
recognised as the one who had earlier done the part of the Ghost, there was
in addition a suggestive link between Hamlet’s relation to the two, stressed
by his embrace of them both. The fact that Hamlet was addressing an actor
who represented both his father,14 his stepfather, and himself made the
whole speech very complex and very histrionic. The borderline between
seeming and being, persona and face, was suggestively blurred.
Act III.1 opened with the Queen entering, followed by Polonius carrying
a pair of red shoes; after them Ophelia:
queen. Ophelia, I hope your young beauty is

Holds a hand-mirror in front of ophelia, paints her lips.
polonius puts down the shoes. the sweet reason
for my son’s bewilderment.
14 In a radio interview with Mikael Timm April 20, 1987 (quoted from Koskinen 1998: 33, note
43) B declared that Hamlet at this point felt that the First Player was his father.
While the Queen put the red shoes on Ophelia’s bare feet, Polonius offered
the young woman a “prayerbook” to give her “the semblance of devotion”
when she was to meet Hamlet. The Councillor and the Queen operated
in smooth conjunction, turning Ophelia into – in their view – an at once
sensually attractive and devote young lady. In fact they gave the innocent
Ophelia the semblance of a whore.
While this was happening on the well-lit part of the stage to the right,
the King’s face was seen to the left, surrounded by darkness. His soliloquy
bore a clear relationship to what had just been enacted:
king to himself. […] The cheek of a whore, painted

with rouge, can hardly be uglier
beneath the mask than my deeds
despite all gilded words and phrases.
Claudius’ verbal imagery here spilled over to the action of his “collaborators,”
Gertrude and Polonius.
When Hamlet appears and finds Ophelia alone, the King and Polonius
are, unseen, overhearing their conversation. Much ink has been spilt on
the question whether Hamlet is aware of their presence or not, if his brutal
attitude to Ophelia is pretended or genuine. His admonishment to Ophelia
“Get thee to a nunnery,” is ambiguous; next to the literal meaning, a place
of chastity, ‘nunnery’ could mean its opposite: a brothel (Shakespeare,
1982: 493ff.). This verbal ambiguity could not be retained in translation.
B replaced it with ironical moralising when he had Hamlet suggest that
Ophelia, now made up as a whore, should go to a “nunnery.” The repeated
admonishments were accompanied by increasingly aggressive touches of
Ophelia’s body, ending in a mock-coitus.
Half-way through the play, The Murder of Gonzago, is performed. As Ham-
let’s designation “The Mousetrap” indicates, the play, in which Claudius’
murder of his brother is imitated, is meant to test the King. If he reacts
violently to the play, he is guilty, if not, he is not. With Shakespeare the play
is preceded by a dumbshow showing the same events as in the playlet. Why
the action is doubled in this way has led to much speculation. This does not
concern us since B deleted the dumbshow entirely.
B placed the trestle stage on which the play-within-the play was per-
formed between Hamlet and Ophelia – the latter with a sensual red cloth
over her light-blue shift – on this side of it and the King and Queen on the
far side. The Theatre King, acted by the First Player, was in a white robe
(like the Ghost), his murderer Lucianus (corresponding to Claudius) in a
78 The Serious Game
black one (cf. Hamlet). When Lucianus appeared on the stage, Hamlet was
making rude sexual gestures to Ophelia below and in front of it:
ophelia. You go too far.

hamlet mock-raping ophelia. You would scream and groan if I went
too far with you.
ophelia screams. Worse and worse.
Hamlet’s mock-rape was presumably intended to imitate the adultery that,

to his mind, had taken place between Lucianus alias Claudius and the
(Theatre) Queen. This was B’s way of doubling the action. The killing of
Gonzago, it has been said, represents not only Claudius’ killing of his brother
but also Hamlet’s desire to kill Claudius (Shakespeare, 1982: 508); the latter
interpretation explains why in the play it is the nephew who is the killer
and why he with B was dressed in black.
Claudius soon proclaimed himself guilty by crying for light and rush-
ing away from the room. After which Hamlet was seen strangely dancing
around with Ophelia, now a whore-like puppet without any will of her own,
a figure representing all women in Hamlet’s mind.
His dance was linked to the King’s handling of the whore-like Pelageia
(B’s invention) in the following scene, an ugly version of the Queen, grey-
haired with a dark-brown wig in her hands, indicating her double nature.
The King was himself at this point dressed in grey long underwear covered
by a red cloak, a glaring contrast between inward and outward, face and
persona. As in the case of Hamlet’s “to be or not to be,” B here turned the
King’s soliloquy – his confession of his fratricide – into a talking to his own
double, the depraved partner, an image both of himself and of the Queen.
When he forced a bottle into Pelageia’s mouth and forced her to drink, it
not only demonstrated unbridled revelry – Hamlet had earlier referred
to the Danes as swinish drunkards – it was also a reminder of the poison
that Claudius had poured into his brother’s ear. While Claudius voiced
his pangs of conscience, the Ghost was seen to the far left, where he had
earlier appeared. Was it a way of concretising Claudius’ guilt feelings? Or
was it a way to indicate that the victim had become an avenger, an agent
of Nemesis?
The reason why Hamlet does not kill the King when he finds him alone
praying has been much discussed by the scholars in connection with the
more fundamental question why Hamlet delays even after he has got proof
of Claudius’ guilt. B’s Claudius fell on his knees, beat his breast, and clasped
his hands as if asking forgiveness for his sins. Behind him Hamlet appeared,
a dagger in his hand. His dagger touched Claudius’ neck, then his heart. B
presented the sequence seemingly realistically, yet utterly unrealistic, since
it would be impossible in reality for Claudius not to notice a dagger right
in front of him. By keeping the sequence in this mixed mood, it seemed as
if Hamlet’s chance to murder the King was an expression of his wishful
thinking rather than that of a factual possibility.
Did Gertrude practice adultery with Claudius when she was married
to Hamlet’s father? The critics have been divided on this issue. The Ghost
never says she did; and he tells Hamlet to be conciliatory with his mother.
Whatever we think about this, it is obvious that Hamlet has strong doubts
about her faithfulness. His doubts seemed strengthened in B’s production,
where Gertrude not only had agreed to an “o’erhasty” marriage, but also
was seen publicly copulating with Claudius and thought she prettified
Ophelia when she gave her the appearance of a slut – all signs pointing in
the direction of adultery.
B’s closet scene did not change this picture. Gertrude, who had ordered
Hamlet to come to her closet, now appeared in a black, lilac-tinted dress
with black rather than red hair – cf. the two wigs of her counterpart
Pelageia. She appeared together with Polonius who told her to upbraid
her son for his unbearable “pranks.” When Hamlet approached, Polonius
hid behind an arras. Mother and son immediately began to reproach
each other, Gertrude using her hand-mirror, revealing both her concern
with her outward self – she had earlier used it for Ophelia in the same
way – and her attempt to evade her son’s glances. Hamlet told her that
he would set her up another kind of mirror, “where she would see her
inmost.” Fearing for her life, Gertrude screamed for help. Polonius behind
the arras echoed her with “Help, help!” Whereupon Hamlet thrust his
penknife through the arras. With Shakespeare, Hamlet then discovers a
dead Polonius. B instead had Polonius stagger across the closet holding
a handkerchief before one eye, thereby indicating where the penknife
had wounded him. When he collapsed Hamlet f inished him off with
his penknife and callously kicked the dying man. All of it was sensed by
Ophelia in the background. Harassing Gertrude with miniature portraits
of her two husbands, Hamlet then reproached her for switching from a
godlike man to a villain. The Ghost now appeared. Experienced only
by Hamlet (and the spectators), it admonished him to speak kindly to
his mother. This was followed by Hamlet’s alternating reactions to his
mother. After he had asked her not to seek Claudius’ bed, he said the
opposite:
80 The Serious Game
hamlet exits. The queen puts on the necklace with Claudius’ miniature
portrait and starts to look at herself in the hand-mirror. hamlet re-enters.
hamlet. One word more, Madame.
queen. What shall I do?
hamlet. By no means what I bid you do!
Let that pig tempt you to his bed […]
By having Hamlet exit and re-enter, B could show how Gertrude, left alone,
fell back on her old pattern. This motivated Hamlet’s sudden switch from
tenderness to renewed cruel attacks on her.
Fearing for his life, Claudius sends Hamlet to England on a diplomatic
pretext. Alone, he discloses that he is actually sending him to his death.
B more openly had him reveal to his secretary that the message to the
English King was “that Hamlet be killed at once.” On his way to the boat
taking him to England, Hamlet happens to meet Fortinbras’ soldiers on
their way to fight about “a little patch of ground” in Poland. Updating and
universalising the situation, B dressed the soldiers in British WW I uniforms
and helmets. Like the actor who could weep tears for Hecuba, a fictive
character, Fortinbras, fighting for something seemingly worthless, contrasts
with Hamlet – “What do I myself?” – whose duty to avenge his father is both
real and significant. Yet Hamlet remains passive. Spurred by the soldiers
who had paused behind him, B’s Hamlet started writing a letter to Horatio:
“What is a man…,” then turned to a soliloquy ending: “Blood will henceforth
be my endeavour. From this day / it governs my will, fills completely my
self.” After which he, as it were, renewed the pact with the Ghost by writing
BLOOD on the black wing behind him.
Her father murdered by the man she loved, Ophelia goes mad. She now
appeared in a white shift, covered by a penitentiary grey horse-hair cloth
and low black boots. In remembrance of her father’s death, she held a white
handkerchief to one eye.
Positing herself between the King in red and the Queen in black, she held
the King’s hand and let the other rest on the Queen’s shoulder while reciting:
“You swore when you got me flat / to make a wife of me.” But he answered,
she adds: “Yes, that was then but you are / a bad girl now!” Whereupon she
beat the King’s breast and leaned against the Queen, then put the King’s
hand to one of her eyes, the Queen’s to the other eye while thanking for “all
good advice” and covered herself in her horse-hair cloth as if it was a burqa.
Informed that his father has been killed, Laertes returns from France.
Erroneously believing that the King is behind the murder, he finds support
among the people, who shout “Laertes shall be king”; together with his
followers he enters the castle. B deleted this sociopolitical aspect and let
Laertes approach the King alone. In black coat and black boots he went
up to the King and pointed his pistol at him, cowardly hidden behind the
Queen. When the Queen walked up to Laertes with outstretched hands,
he pointed the pistol to her forehead, then broke down and leaned against
her, crying. In his black mourning attire and his ambivalent reactions to
the Queen, he was like another Hamlet.
Re-entering, Ophelia was dressed in a huge regal brocade gown, with a
red-and-white flower pattern, the hem patinated so that it looked as if she
had been wading through mud.15 Was the mad girl imagining herself as a
princess or queen, married to Hamlet? In her hand she held nails which
she handed out to those around her as if they were flowers. Rosemary and
pansies – for remembrance and thoughts – were given to Laertes, fennel
and columbines, signifying marital infidelity (Shakespeare, 1982: 359), for
the Queen, rue or herb o’grace for the King. The handing out of the rue was
accompanied by her drawing a cross with a nail on the King’s forehead, the
herb o’grace by her caressing of the King’s cheek.
The Gravedigger scene is a grimly humorous interlude in the play’s serious
action. The text was here radically changed; some bits were deleted, other
bits, often with reference to the world of the audience, added. The scene
opened with a lid in the floor being opened. Up came the Gravedigger in
blue overall, black jacket, red nose, bowler hat, food box, thermos, a contem-
porary and yet unreal figure since gravediggers no longer exist in Sweden.
He was played by the same actor who had earlier done Polonius; apart from
this ironical combination, there was an irony in the fact that someone
so reminiscent of Ophelia’s father was now busy digging her grave. Two
masked Pierrots, all in white and furnished with saxophone, trombone and
drum accompanied the Gravedigger’s initial music-hall song, a burlesque
memento mori. When the Gravedigger found the skull of Yorick, the King’s
sometime court jester, he plucked a worm from it, then recalled how Yorick
had once poured a bottle of “Rhine wine” over his head – B changed it to
“Aalborg,” the Danish aquavit. Returned from England, Hamlet showed up,
with Horatio, a knitted black cap on his head,16 further a grey work coat,
brown corduroy trousers, and black half-boots. Addressing Yorick who used
to carry him on his back when he was a child, Hamlet tenderly spoke to the
skull, putting his cap on it. Another memento mori.
15 The dress had been used in two earlier productions of Mary Stuart (Bergman/ Harning,
2008: 92ff.).
16 The cap was similar to the one B used to wear as a young director (Steene, 2005: 691).
82 The Serious Game
The ringing of church bells announced that Ophelia’s funeral proces-

sion was approaching. Below modern black umbrellas the participants,
all in mourning, sought protection from the rain. Or were they just hiding
behind these uniform ‘masks’? The Queen’s bouquet of roses,17 soon to be
thrown into the grave, formed a red spot in the overwhelming blackness.
The mourners gathered around the open grave. The corpse, covered in a
red cloak, was lowered into the grave. After the priest – in a Swedish rather
than Danish clerical collar – had declared that Ophelia only by royal decree
was allowed to be buried in sanctified ground with a “virgin wreath” on her
head,18 Laertes banned the priest, leapt into the grave, raised his dead sister
and declared that he wished to join her in death. Hamlet then appeared and
professed his love for Ophelia. He and Laertes began to grapple but were
soon separated by the King and Horatio. When the attendants disappeared,
Ophelia was seen standing in the background in her light-blue shift and a
wreath on her head, visualising that she was in everyone’s mind.
For the final fencing between Hamlet and Laertes, the King and Laertes
had conspired a plan guaranteeing Hamlet’s death. Both the point of Laertes’
sword and the chalice of wine to be handed to Hamlet by the King were
to be poisoned. The fencing significantly took place on the same trestle
stage that had earlier been used for The Murder of Gonzago. Eight masked
Councillors in wigs and red robes, acting as jury, were seen on the far side
of the stage, the King and the Queen, their backs to the audience, on this
side of it. Osric, acting as judge, provided the combatants with their swords.
The King entered the stage and drank to Hamlet’s health. He then put a
pearl in his cup more valuable, he said, than that to be found in the crowns
of four earlier Danish kings. The fencing began. After two hits in Hamlet’s
favour, the production script has it:
osric. A hit, an obvious hit.

laertes. Well, come again.
king. Stay, give me wine. Look, Hamlet, here is the pearl.
Now it is yours. Now I toast to your health.
Drums, trumpets and cannon shots.
Give him the cup.
hamlet. No, first another bout. Let the cup stand.
Come on!
17 In his prompt script B writes: “The Queen strews flowers. Lilies. Meadow-flowers. What?”
18 As a sign of maidenhood, a garland was traditionally placed on the bier at burial and
afterwards hung up in the church (Shakespeare, 1982: 389).
They fight.
Another hit. What do say?
laertes. Touché, I do confess.
king. Our Hamlet wins.
queen. He’s sweating and scant of breath. Hamlet, take
my handkerchief and wipe your brow.
Now the Queen drinks to Hamlet’s health.
hamlet. I thank you, madam.
king. Gertrude, do not drink!
queen. I wish to drink now – excuse me.
She drinks and offers the cup to hamlet.
king aside. She drank from the poison! Now it’s too late!
hamlet. I dare not drink yet – but soon.
queen. Come, let me wipe your brow.
In the performance this became:
osric. A hit, an obvious hit. Applause by the king and the masked coun-
cillors, not by the queen.
laertes. Well, come again. They fight.
hamlet. Another hit. What do you say?
laertes. Touché, I do confess. The queen gets up, takes the cup beside
the king who is too preoccupied by the fighting to pay any attention to her.
king. Our Hamlet wins. Applause by the king and the masked councilors.
queen half turned away from the king. Now the Queen drinks to Hamlet’s
health. The cup touches her mouth.
king turning to the queen, his hand outstretched to her, whispers. Ger-
trude, do not drink!
queen firmly. No. Moves away from his outstretched hand, whispers. I wish
to drink now. Drinks, hands the cup back to the king. Come, Hamlet, let
me wipe your brow. Moves to hamlet. Both of them on their knees next to
the trestle stage. She wipes his brow.
hamlet returning to the trestle stage. A third time – and no more tricks!
The queen slowly creeps back to her chair, gets up. She and the king keep
staring at each other. She sits down.
The Queen’s toasting of Hamlet was an important moment since the audi-
ence knew that the wine was poisoned. How would the King react? To direct
the audience’s attention to this, B had the characters in the background
momentarily freeze their action. When the fight continued the King ignored
84 The Serious Game
the fencing and was looking only at the Queen hanging limp on her chair.
Hamlet, wounded in his arm by Laertes’ sword, looked at his arm to indicate
that he sensed he was poisoned. When Laertes accidentally dropped his
sword, Hamlet picked it up and offered Laertes his own. Seconds later he
hit Laertes with the poisoned sword. As Laertes was dying on the stage, the
Queen was collapsing below it. B’s text was explicit:
king. She fainted when she saw blood.

queen. No, the wine. Dear Hamlet, I am poisoned. It was the wine, the
wine. She dies.
king looks at the queen, grips her arm. She fainted when she saw blood.
queen falling back on her chair, dying. No, Hamlet, it’s the wine, the wine.
As could be guessed from the Queen’s behaviour, she was not, as the text
suggests, drinking the wine in good faith, in which case her death is a highly
ironical quid pro quo on the part of the King. As some of the critics observed,
B’s Queen deliberately committed suicide; a single word in the prompt script
– “Vet!” (Knows!) written next to the deleted “excuse me” – confirms this
interpretation. Having seen her son murder Polonius; by now aware that her
husband had committed fratricide; having experienced Ophelia’s suicide;
and, most of all, suffering from guilt feelings for all that had happened, she
had no wish to stay alive. Suspecting that the pearl the King had dropped
in the cup was actually poisonous, she chose to end her life. When Laertes
revealed that “the King is to blame,” Hamlet, supported by Queen’s limp arm,
wounded the King with the poisoned sword. Trying to escape, the King was
stopped by the Ghost who embraced him as Hamlet, supported by Horatio
behind him, gave him the killing thrust. Nemesis had been administered.
Dying, Hamlet was seen in a spotlight facing the audience with Horatio, who
had just offered to die with him, like a shadow with closed eyes behind him.
With a smile, Hamlet turned around, embraced Horatio and fell down dead.
When Fortinbras arrives to greet King Claudius, he encounters four
corpses: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, Hamlet. Horatio says he will recount to
the “yet unknowing world / How these things came about.” Fortinbras says
he has “some rights of memory in this kingdom,” indicating that he will now
be the new King. He orders Hamlet’s body to be borne off in honour “like
a soldier.” Both the real and the prospective kings are dead. Long live the
new and – implicitly good – King, who is to be a strong version of Hamlet.
B’s ending was a far cry from this conciliatory conclusion which it in
fact directly contradicted. Taking the audience by surprise right up to their
own modern world,
Hamlet’s “the rest is silence” was abruptly broken off by the deafening
sound of fierce rock music as Fortinbras’ black-dressed soldiers with riot
helmets and submachine guns crowded the stage. Fortinbras himself,
dressed as a guerilla leader in beret, black shiny uniform and jackboots,
went up to Hamlet to check that he was indeed dead, then did the same
with the Queen and the King. Posing as a victor, he addressed the press,
represented by a woman with a microphone and a cameraman, both dressed
in red uniforms, a colour that by this time had come to be associated not
only with royalty but also with blood. When Horatio screamingly began to
tell the woman with the microphone about the perversions of the Danish
court, Fortinbras pushed her and the cameraman aside, then gave a sign
to his soldiers to take Horatio away, obviously to be executed. The man of
integrity who could have told posterity the truth about what had happened
was brutally murdered. Hamlet’s story was not to be told. History was
violated.
The Queen, Laertes, and the King were all dumped into what a while ago
was Ophelia’s grave. Posing again, now also for the TV camera, Fortinbras
declared that he had “a right to demand this kingdom,” a statement followed
by enthusiastic cheering from his soldiers. When Hamlet’s body, on lit de
parade, was finally carried away, it was to a blinding bluish light directed
to the audience and to a mixture of sweet electronic music and somber
kettle-drums in the ominous rhythm – the distinctive short-short-short-
long – of the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, known as the Destiny
Symphony. The rest was darkness. This was a somberly provocative ending
showing that with the arrival of the new mass media the time had become
even more manipulative, more widely out of joint, than ever before.
The reception of B’s Hamlet was mixed both in Sweden and abroad. Only
80% of the Dramaten seats were occupied (Steene, 2005: 693), a low figure
for this theatre. B was very disappointed in the half-hearted Swedish reac-
tion to what he considered one of his best productions (Sjögren, 2002: 182).
6. Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey
into Night
Composed in 1941, Long Day’s Journey into Night is O’Neill’s most memorable
drama and in the opinion of many the best American drama ever written.1
When it opened at Dramaten in 1988 to celebrate the centennial of the
author’s birth, it was the first and only time that B staged an O’Neill play
– surprisingly, perhaps, in view of his relation to the American playwright
via their common spiritual father Strindberg. About a month before the
opening he told a journalist that Long Day’s Journey “has a dark downward
attraction. If you finally come down to the level where the demons live who
have triggered the drama, you cannot remain free of them.”2 If this seems to
indicate an involvement with the theme of the play, the closing remark in
the prompt script about the rehearsals suggests rather the opposite: “It was
a damned finicky job. Never ended.” Many years later B denied any affinity
with O’Neill and minimised his own part in the production:
I have no relation to O’Neill. I took on Long Day’s Journey as a kind of

loyalty toward the theatre that wished to present it in connection with
its jubilee3 and above all as a loyalty to the actors who were to have
important roles. […] When we got going it was as if the rehearsals man-
aged themselves. I felt more like a rehearsal guard. (Sjögren. 2002: 428)
B’s very modest enthusiasm presumably concerned not so much the play
itself. Rather, it was caused on the one hand by the fact that, unlike what he
was used to, the decision to stage the play was not his own but the theatre’s,
on the other by his feeling rather superfluous as a director. The last applied
especially to the actor playing the part of Jamie4 who refused to follow B’s
suggestions (Steene, 2005: 701). Ironically this actor was especially praised
by the critics.
Dramaten has a very special relationship to O’Neill. It was there that
many of his plays were performed in the period when his own country
1 For an analysis of the play, see Törnqvist, 2004: 176-196.

2 Elisabeth Sörenson in Svenska Dagbladet March 20, 1988.
3 Founded in 1788, Dramaten celebrated its 200th anniversary at the time.
4 In the production he was called ‘Jim’; in order not to confuse the reader I shall here stick to
O’Neill‘s name ‘Jamie.’
88 The Serious Game
seemed to turn its back on him. This was the reason why O’Neill, a few weeks
before he died, told his wife Carlotta that he did not want an American
theatre to do Long Day’s Journey, that he wanted it done at Dramaten “in
gratitude for the excellent performances they had given his plays over the
years” (Olsson, 1977: 103).
Olof Molander, who had earlier been responsible for Mourning Becomes
Electra, The Iceman Cometh and A Moon for the Misbegotten was the logi-
cal person to stage the play. But when Molander’s wish that his favourite
actress, Tora Teje, should play the part of Mary Tyrone was rejected, he
refused to direct it. Instead the young and promising Bengt Ekerot was
asked to do it. The world premiere of the posthumous drama took place on
February 10, 1956. It was a formidable success, perhaps the greatest ever in
Dramaten. O’Neill’s dialogue was followed almost to the letter, resulting in
a performance lasting close to four and a half hours. The stage directions
were on the whole adhered to. With four outstanding actors in the main
roles, the audience’s interest could be equally divided between “all the four
haunted Tyrones,” (O’Neill’s description in the dedication to his wife that
precedes the play). The head of Dramaten at the time, Karl Ragnar Gierow,
has said that the dialogue “is written in such a way that a group of actors
who do not stick closely to the text will not manage the task.”5 Florence
Eldridge, similarly, who did the part of Mary Tyrone in the first Broadway
production, has praised O’Neill’s widow for her refusal to have a single word
cut. “The more one worked on the play,” Eldridge (1979: 287) said, “the more
one realised that it was a symphony. Each character had a theme and the
‘repetitions’ were the variations on the themes.”
However, the play is now not as sacrosanct as it was in 1956, and in his
1988 production B neglected virtually all O’Neill’s stage directions and
omitted quite a lot of the dialogue, reducing the playing time with about
an hour and a half (Steene, 2005:701). Cathleen’s, the servant’s, part was
considerably shortened. The initial pig story was deleted.6 The literary al-
lusions were largely limited to the antithesis between Tyrone’s Shakespeare
and Edmund’s Nietzsche. Although some of the 1912 atmosphere and some
of the Irish fragrance thereby disappeared, none of the critics found these
omissions harmful. Instead B focussed on the central and, for the Swedish
audience, truly intelligible aspects of the play.
5 Svenska Dagbladet, Feb. 16, 1972.

6 For the thematic significance of this story in relation to the main action, see Törnqvist,
1969: 241ff.
Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night 89
The translation was also revised in other ways. The Swedish translator
sometimes ‘directs’ the play by italicising certain words in the dialogue;
such italics are ignored in the production script. Changes in the Swedish
target language, especially its slang, in the decades since 1956 called for
certain updatings.
In contrast to the realistic world premiere, B presented an existential,
stylised version of the play. This appeared most significantly in the ex-
tremely sparse scenery, designed by Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss,7 which
combined cinematic effects with theatrical ones. Instead of a recognisable
New England living room, the audience was faced with a black ‘raft’ – a
square, raised stage, sloping toward the auditorium – suggesting that dark-
ness surrounded this living room just as “our little life is rounded with a
sleep,” one of Tyrone’s many Shakespeare quotations. The blackness of
O’Neill’s back parlour had, as it were, been extended.
The raft could also be seen as a jetty, the two columns at the back of the
stage corresponding to piles or a dock. It was by jumping from a dock that
once tried to commit suicide. The stage thus in a sense visualised the past
which, in her words, is “the present” and “the future, too.”
From another point of view the scenery could be compared to the black
interior of an old-fashioned, funnel-shaped gramophone. The image director
and scene designer had in mind was an acoustic box, where every whisper
could be heard. Similarly, the practical idea behind the limited, raised stage
was to have the actors come closer to the audience, thereby increasing the
intimacy of the play.
In the last act, B took the audience outdoors to a stylised version of the
veranda of the Monte Cristo cottage, the O’Neill summer home in New
London, Connecticut, on which the setting of the play is modeled.8 O’Neill’s
unity of space was hereby abolished. The new, outdoor setting, especially
the worn green floor of the veranda, visually transferred Edmund’s wish
that he had been born a fish and his concomitant longing for death by
water – as well as the feelings of all the Tyrones that they are lost in a fog.
The impression to be communicated was that of a human aquarium.
B’s version was suggestive not least in its sparse, filmic use of projections.
First the façade of the Monte Cristo summer house was seen, dreamlike in
its low-angle perspective, as though floating in the air: exterior and interior,
7 The information concerning the stage design in the following is based on my interview with
the scene designer in May, 1988.
8 The photo of the veranda with the young Eugene, his brother Jamie, and his father James
was reproduced in the theatre program.
90 The Serious Game
mask and face in one and the same stage picture. Then a projection of
the window in the spare room, where Mary’s relapse took place, that is, a
visualisation of what was on the mind of the men. After that a projection of
a closed double doorway, indicating how the family seemed locked up with
one another. Subsequently, a grotesquely big greenish wallpaper inviting
the audience to enter the fantasy world of the four characters as they suc-
cumbed to dreams and drunkenness. Then again the exterior of the house,
now behind drifting spells of fog. Finally a projection of the wallpaper once
more, now in cold, blue light.
To the left on the raised stage there was a worn brown armchair (a quota-
tion from the 1956 production), to the right a round table, surrounded by
four chairs of different shape: four different human fates.
Largely abstaining from atmospheric light, B had the characters brightly
illuminated throughout the performance, as though they were put on a
dissecting table or exposed to X-rays. The lighting visualised both their
attempts to get at the naked truth with each other and their feeling of being
painfully stripped of their own consoling masks.
There was an ironical reference to the façade mentality in the classical
Greek (imitation) column which later was shown to hide a cocktail cabinet,
a piece of property related especially to the three men’s tendency to embel-
lish their weaknesses. Another column, on which a Madonna and a votive
candle had been placed, visualised both Mary‘s and the men’s inclination
to cling to an empty faith. Empty, because when the stage was revolved
in the latter part of the performance, the sculpture was shown to be not
three-dimensional as one would have expected, but flat and provided with
a support at the back.
In a wider, existential sense, the Greek column with its Dionysian
content (the liquor) was an ironic reference to Edmund’s alias O’Neill’s
Nietzschean craving for a rebirth of the Greek spirit, the Greek sense of
tragedy, whereas the Holy Virgin represented an alternative, Catholic faith.
The four characters were doomed to move restlessly between these two
symbolic cornerstones of western civilisation, both turned hollow. Toward
the end the four were seen in resigned, frozen positions, waiting for death.
The inclusion of a worshipped Virgin Mary in the scenery visualised both
Tyrone’s Irish-based Catholicism and, especially, Mary’s attempt to gain
back her lost faith. At the same time, the sculpture was a reminder of the
men’s worship of the Virgin’s namesake, their wife or mother. Significantly,
their discovery of Mary’s relapse into morphine addiction more or less
coincided with the audience’s discovery that the back of the sculpture was
hollow.
In the play text there is an interesting contrast between the four some-
what dissociated lamps in the living room, representing the living present,
and the five ‘united’ front parlour bulbs reminding us of the harmony that
might have been; that is, the harmony between all the Tyrones including the
dead child Eugene, who is very present in their minds. Abstaining from this
lamp symbolism, B nevertheless retained it in a way by opening his perfor-
mance with a little pantomime. The four Tyrones slowly entered the black
platform, formed a group, a tableau vivant, in which each of them touched
his or her neighbour, a group suggesting closeness, intimacy, tenderness,
love. Then the group dissolved and the play began. In the subsequent action
the four were never again seen in harmonious togetherness. At most there
were brief moments of tenderness and love between individual members
of the family. The end, designed as a contrast to the initial togetherness,
showed the four spread out, isolated from each other; they then disappeared
in different directions, as if on their lonely way to death.
When Edmund, in the last act, tries to tell his father of his pantheistic
experiences at sea, he does so in a manner which indicates that, contrary
to what he himself claims, he has more than the makings of a poet in him.
Edmund’s monologue could be recreated as a desperate attempt to establish
contact with his father or, on the contrary, as a pseudo-soliloquy, the reverie
of someone lost in a dream, forgetful of the fact that he has a listener. In
either case his poetical nature would be stressed by the very fact that the
speech seems spontaneous. By having Edmund read bits of his monologue
aloud from his notebook, B made the poetical nature of the speech more
plausible and indicated furthermore that the audience was confronted with
a burgeoning writer. Moreover, by having Edmund read the key sentence of
the monologue – “It was a great mistake, my being born a man. I would have
been much more successful as a seagull or a fish.” – from his notebook,9 B
indicated that this was not a sudden emotional outburst, but a persistent
feeling of alienation. Edmund was, as it were, letting his father in on the
secrets of his private diary. Edmund’s part is perhaps the most difficult
one in the play. He has less of a past, less of a profile than the other family
members. This might be because, unlike the others, he is “more sinned
against than sinning” (Raleigh, 1965: 92). At the same time, being the most
balanced of the four, he is the one we can most easily identify with.
In B’s version, Tyrone was a big, boisterous child, in need of a mother,
as his first entrance together with Mary clarified. He was also a man who
9 Cf. B’s remark in the prompt script at this point: “This is the song, the centre, and the focus.
Edmund is standing with closed eyes, the book against his breast. Stillness.”
92 The Serious Game
was play-acting at home, as though this was just another stage on which to
perform. Tyrone’s spontaneity and fighting spirit were stressed. In the last
act he was costumed, not as O’Neill has it in “an old brown dressing gown,”
indicating his stinginess, but in an elegant dressing gown that bore witness
to his glorious past as an actor. His slippers, by contrast, were old-fashioned
and ugly. His discordant costume testified to his split nature. His long
confessional monologue brought out the need of a somewhat naïve man
to justify himself to his more mature younger son.
The focal character in the play, Mary, was dressed according to the
fashion in 1912. She wore a violet dress throughout most of the play, with a
grey, foggy tint to it. The colour ironically linked her with the whore of the
play, Fat Violet. At the end her nightgown suggested the dress of a nun. When
Mary leaves her three men, handing her bridal gown back to her husband,
the family loses its centre and binding force; this is why her relapse into
morphinism is so fatal for all of them. O’Neill has here created one of the
most striking moments in twentieth-century drama, since it fuses past,
present, and future for all the four Tyrones in a pregnant visual image.
B’s Mary was more robust than her predecessor at Dramaten, the frail
and oversensitive Inga Tidblad. Like B’s Tyrone, she at times seemed to be
acting a part. Jamie’s sarcastic comment on Mary’s final entrance – “The
Mad Scene. Enter Ophelia!” – was cut. Presumably B found it disturbingly
explicit – especially since the Stockholm audience might see a connection
between his barefoot Ophelia in his production of Hamlet two years earlier
and his, at this moment, barefoot Mary.
The most impressive of the four characters, several critics found, was
the elder brother Jamie. Unlike his histrionically talented father, Jamie is
merely a ham-actor. As in several of his films, B here utilised the contrast
between respected stage actors and discriminated clowns. His Jamie, the
least loved of the four family members, was hiding his true self behind the
mask of a grinning clown. Behind his vulgar Broadway wise-guy appear-
ance, Jamie showed a sensitive human being, more probing than any of
the other Tyrones.
B’s version was very much an attempt to bring out the classical tragedy
that is hidden behind the naturalistic surface layer of Long Day’s Journey. In
a way it was a reply to O’Neill’s worrying question in 1931: “Is it possible to get
modern psychological approximation of Greek sense of fate […], which an
intelligent audience of today, possessed of no belief in gods or supernatural
retribution, could accept and be moved by?” (Halfmann, 1987: 86). The
production of Long Day’s Journey was an attempt to provide a viable answer
to O’Neill’s fundamental question.
What in theatre language is called blocking, i.e. determining the positions

and movements of the actors on the stage, in drama theory is referred to as
proxemics, a term for what is rarely indicated in the stage directions of drama
text and amply and much more precisely in a stage performance. As always
with B, the prompt script is full of drawings indicating blockings. Proxemic
character relations between people taking part in a dramatic/theatrical
event can be of three kinds: (1) character-character, (2) character-spectator,
(3) spectator-spectator. In the following, I shall focus on (1), deal indirectly
with (2) and disregard (3). The proxemic relationship between character(s)
and character(s) can be defined (a) as the distance at any given moment
between the characters, and (b) as the nature of this distance. The distance
between people, it has been suggested (Elam, 1980: 65), can be categorised
into four groups: intimate (physical contact or near-contact), personal (1 1/2
inch-4 feet or 4 cm-1.2 m), social (4-12 feet or 1.2 m-3.6 m) and public (12-25 feet
or 3.6-7.5 m). The nature of the distance can, for example, be above-below,
next to, in front of-behind, turned to-turned away from. It will indirectly
involve the characters’ location on the stage (stage zones), their positions
(standing, sitting, lying), their relationship to scenery and properties, etc. The
distance between the characters must also, of course, be seen in relation to
their attitude to each other at any given moment, to what they say and do not
say to each other. The proxemics can either support or contradict verbalised
attitudes (Fischer-Lichte, 1992: 93). We may further speak of static or dynamic
proxemics. In all cases the proxemics are from the spectator’s point of view.
O’Neill’s habit of ‘directing’ his own plays via ample stage directions
make comparisons between proxemic character relations in his drama
texts and in performances based on them possible to an extent that by far
exceeds the plays by most other playwrights. This is especially true when
comparisons concern performances which remain faithful to the author’s
dialogue, while the blocking differs from what is prescribed or suggested
in his stage directions.
B’s performance combined a highly stylised setting with selectively real-
istic acting, often bordering on choreographic patterning. His living room
had only imaginary walls. Unlike O’Neill, he placed the window-wall not to
the right but in the proscenium opening, so that Mary‘s symbolic comments
on the fog were made in a frontal, very visible position, comparable to a
cinematic close-up. His characters grouped themselves with regard to one
another in ways which often opposed the realistic demand for verisimilitude
in a striving to visualise their state of mind. Thus Mary and Edmund at one
point were sitting next to one another on the floor, like two little children.
At the end of Act II.2, where Mary feels desperately lonely, O’Neill indicates
94 The Serious Game
her state of mind by having her stand by the table, “one hand drumming on
it, the other fluttering up to pat her hair.” This is a subtle way of suggesting,
in the realistic mode, Mary’s ambivalent emotions toward her family. B, by
contrast, had her lie down on the floor to express more emphatically her
feelings of debasement at this point.
An advantage of stylised character proxemics compared to realistic ones
is that it is easier to establish a spatial pattern or leitmotif throughout a
performance. Thus Mary’s desperately low position, just referred to, pointed
back to a situation preceding it; sitting on the floor close to Edmund she at
one point stretched her arms upwards while expressing her longing for the
Blessed Virgin. At the same time it pointed forward to Jamie’s corpse-like
position on the floor in the last act as well as to her own falling to the
floor at the end. Similarly, by having Mary kneeling first to Edmund, then
to Tyrone, finally to Virgin Mary, B made this position an integral part
of a choreographic pattern visualising Mary’s turning away from family
communion in search of virginal separateness.
Already in the opening of his performance, B emphasised the significance
of the proxemic character relations. A transcription of the opening moments
might read as follows:
Sound of foghorn. Lights up. Tilted projection of a house exterior on the

cyclorama. On a black, raised square platform two low ‘columns’ can be
seen at the back, the left one with a sculpture of Virgin Mary on top, the
right one topped by a Greek capital. Downstage an armchair left, a table,
and four chairs of different shape right.
mary enters from left. Behind her, tyrone enters with folded arms. jamie
enters from right, his hands in his pockets. Behind him edmund. The four
form a group in the middle of the room. The three men – tyrone to the
left, edmund in the middle, jamie to the right – face mary who stands
between tyrone and edmund. mary, turning her back to the audience,
faces them. Her left hand reaches out for tyrone’s right hand, her right
hand for edmund’s right hand. edmund puts his left arm around jamie’s
shoulder. jamie keeps both hands in his pockets. They remain completely
still for a moment.
Far left, outside the family group and the platform, cathleen, the second
housemaid, stands waiting with a tray.
O’Neill singles out the “varnished oak rocker [...] at right front of table” from
the three “wicker armchairs” close to it. The oak rocker represents the sturdy
nature of the pater familias – only he sits in it – while the three wicker chairs
represent the other family members. The round table suggests ‘democratic’
family communion. The distance of the rocker from the table is an indica-
tion of the mental distance between Tyrone and the other three.
By placing four chairs around the family table and by giving each of them
a different shape, B made it clear that these chairs represent “all the four
[...] Tyrones.” At the same time the director retained the idea of positioning
one chair away from the table. But unlike O’Neill’s rocker, B’s armchair was
occupied not only by Tyrone but also by the other family members. While
O’Neill thus opts for a realistic division – separating the father from the
other three – B’s division, emphasising that constant flux between separate-
ness and communion was applicable to all the Tyrones – and, obliquely, to
human relations generally.
While O’Neill has his four characters enter from the same direction – quite
logically since they have just had breakfast together in the dining room – B
had husband and wife enter from one direction and the sons from another. In
this way it was suggested from the very beginning that the older generation
was mentally separated from the younger one. Yet very soon the four, as we
have seen, formed a close-knit family group of tenderness and love. In this
group Mary was singled out as the pivotal figure by her central position
opposite the three men. While Tyrone and Jamie both took complementary
self-contained positions – the former an authoritarian, the latter a noncha-
lantly insubordinate one – Mary and Edmund showed gestural compassion.
There was no physical contact between Tyrone and Mary on the one hand
and Jamie on the other. Edmund bridged, as it were, the distance between
the parents and Jamie. In the rest of the performance the audience witnessed
how Edmund was embraced by the other three family members; how Tyrone
and Mary embraced each other as well as Edmund; and how Jamie was
embraced only by Edmund. Taking embracement as a proxemic signifier, we
may from this conclude that the two brothers in their inter-human relations
were at polar ends, Edmund being the most, Jamie the least loved member
of the family. The initial tableau vivant – the foghorn already here provided
an ominous background ‘music’ – thus very precisely anticipated in nuce
what was soon to be enacted at length and in detail. It functioned in other
words as a proxemic image of the fundamental family relations, providing
the audience with an Erwartungshorizont vis-à-vis the drama-to-come.
The tableau could be interpreted in different ways. It could be seen as a
pose, a façade, an expression of how the family tried to keep up appearances,
a sign of how it wished to be seen by others; their momentary immobility
was akin to that of a group posing for a photographer. It could be seen as
an expression of wish-fulfilment, indicating their common dream of how
96 The Serious Game
everything might have been. Or it could be seen as an image of how love

bound the four together despite the menacing sound of the foghorn which
seemed to warn that the harmony between the four was brittle and soon
to be disturbed.
The harmonious grouping was established again in the early part of Act I.
The relevant lines read:
mary. [...] But I did truly have beautiful hair once, didn’t I, James?
tyrone. The most beautiful in the world!
mary. It was a rare shade of reddish brown and so long it came down
below my knees. You ought to remember it, too, Jamie.
When these lines are spoken O’Neill indicates by means of mimicry that
there is a rapport between Tyrone and Jamie on the one hand and Mary on
the other: Mary‘s face “lights up with a charming, shy embarrassment” and
“there is an old boyish charm in [jamie’s] loving smile at his mother.” It is by
means of such facial kinesics that O’Neill tries to suggest that both Mary
and Jamie at this point revert to an earlier and happier stage in their life.
It is debatable, however, whether such subtle changes alone can suggest to
a spectator what O’Neill makes plain to the reader: that Mary is now “the
girl she has once been.”
Sensing this, B provided Mary with an old photo album. Tyrone and
Jamie gathered on either side of her to look at the young girl – her happy,
innocent past self – visible in the album. Again the proxemics underlined
the central position of the wife/mother in the family. As designed by B,
the emphatic grouping of the characters at this point indicated that the
harmony of the initial family union was still retained, be it with some
effort: Edmund, whose illness by now seemed worrying to everyone, no
longer joined the others.
In Act III, O’Neill again places Mary in the middle, now between Tyrone
and Edmund. But this time her position becomes highly ironical, since
both we and they know that Mary has relapsed into morphinism and,
as we are soon to learn, that Edmund seems doomed to an early death
from tuberculosis. Mary’s middle position now contrasts strongly with
her seemingly non-caring attitude to Edmund: she avoids the issue of his
health. She has ceased to be the binding force in the family she once was;
her “leave-taking” has begun. B here followed O’Neill.
In the ending Mary’s moving away from the three men is indicated in the
drama text not only in her radically changed outward appearance but also
by striking proxemic, mimic, gestic and paralinguistic signifiers:
[mary] comes into the room, the wedding gown trailing on the floor. [...]
[tyrone] gets to his feet and stands directly in her path [...]. She lets him take
[the wedding gown]. [...] She moves back from tyrone [...]. He sinks back
on his chair, holding the wedding gown in his arms with an unconscious
clumsy, protective gentleness.
While Jamie recites from Swinburne’s “A Leave-taking,”
She moves like a sleepwalker, around the back of jamie’s chair, then forward
toward left front, passing behind edmund. [...] She moves left to the front
end of the sofa beneath the windows and sits down, facing front, her hands
folded in her lap, in a demure schoolgirlish pose.10
This is the only time in the drama text that anyone sits down far away from
the family table. Mary’s separation from the others could hardly have been
suggested more markedly. The men immediately recognise her separation
and act accordingly:
jamie pushes the bottle toward [tyrone]. He pours a drink without disar-
ranging the wedding gown he holds carefully over his other arm and on
his lap, and shoves the bottle back. jamie pours his and passes the bottle
to edmund, who, in turn, pours one. tyrone lifts his glass and his sons
follow suit mechanically, but before they can drink mary speaks and they
slowly lower their drinks to the table, forgetting them.
After Mary’s concluding monologue – or soliloquy, since she now seems

totally unaware of the three men – the final stage directions confirm that
the separation is lethal to all the Tyrones:
She stares before her in a sad dream. tyrone stirs in his chair. edmund
and jamie remain motionless.
Mary’s returning her wedding gown to her husband signifies her ‘separation’
from him and from their married life. She has reverted to the time before
she met Tyrone, to the time when she dreamed of becoming a nun and of
separating herself from the world. In the closing moments “the past,” Mary
says in the play’s key line, “is the present.” The action has come full circle.
10 A ms. drawing by O’Neill, showing Mary’s proxemics at the end, is found in Törnqvist, 1969:
143.
98 The Serious Game
B’s version of the ending differed significantly from O’Neill’s:
The three men, all of them in drunken stupor, are spread out over the stage
[representing the veranda of the house]. tyrone is sitting to the left, jamie
in the middle, edmund to the right. mary enters from left with the wedding
gown trailing on the floor. tyrone gets up and entreats mary to give it to
him so as not to soil it. She moves over to him and does so. She then moves to
jamie, finally to Edmund. Close to edmund she takes a frontal position and
utters her soliloquy. When she recalls how Mother Elizabeth had refused
to let her become a nun, she falls on her bottom to the floor. tyrone and
jamie stir. edmund gets up and helps her to his chair, where she concludes
her soliloquy. When she mentions the Blessed Virgin, edmund moves back
to the sculpture of Virgin Mary. The foghorn is heard. mary concludes
her soliloquy: “I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a
time.” edmund and tyrone stir, jamie remains motionless. mary gets up
from the chair and exits left. Lights out. jamie out right, tyrone out left.
A radiant tree is double-projected on the cyclorama. edmund comes back
to the table, picks up his black notebook and disappears right. Curtain.
One of the critics noticed that Mary, in her and the play’s final line, stressed
the word “time” – “as if the sum of her bitter and sad life was to be found
in that word” (Jarl W. Donnér in Sydsvenska Dagbladet). By emphasising
this word Mary made it clear that her happiness had been only “for a time.”
B’s ending was clearly choreographed as a contrast to the initial together-
ness. The grouping was now that of four separate individuals. The family
unity had been dissolved. The four chairs around the table in the living
room had been replaced by three separate chairs – for the men – on the
veranda. With one chair missing, there was only the floor for Mary to sit
on. While O’Neill indicates her separateness from the men horizontally,
B did it vertically. Her falling flop down became an ironical comment on
the discrepancy between her aspiring dreams and prosaic down-to-earth
reality.
Abstaining from quoting “A Leave-taking” – which probably seemed
both too explicit and too pathetic to him – B retained Mary’s proxemic
leave-taking of each of her men. Omitting the drinking on their part at the
end, he kept its essential element: the drunken stupor, which turned the
men into immobile corpses. This also had the advantage that it created
a stillness around Mary’s soliloquy that enabled the audience to focus
on it all the more. The performance ended – as it began – with a highly
stylised tableau vivant, or rather, a tableau mourant. One after the other
the characters left the black platform, by now clearly representing the raft
of life, and departed into the surrounding darkness – as we are all doomed
once to leave this life alone on our “journey into night.” In B’s existential
version this was the final leave-taking.
Or so it would have been, were it not that B at the very end added a
significant visual epilogue. The radiant tree, which summarised what the
audience had just seen enacted – the entangled net of family relations – was
spatially linked with Edmund, whose alter ego thirty years later was to
write Long Day’s Journey into Night. The combination of the radiant tree,
the notebook, and Edmund seemed to imply that out of this entangled
situation a soul was being born. This again seemed to indicate that what
the audience had seen enacted had been in remembrance of things past
on the part of Edmund, who now appeared to be a link between the two
O’Neills: the young experiencer of his family situation in 1912 and the ageing
‘diarist’ of it in 1941.11 Especially at the end the claim for “deep pity and
understanding for all the four haunted Tyrones,” could be intensely shared
by the spectators, reminding them perhaps that they had been confronted
with a family constellation identical with the first family of mankind.
The production was on the whole enthusiastically received but some
critics had a problem with the actor doing Edmund, while, as previously
mentioned, the actor doing Jamie was especially lauded. There were guest
performances in Bergen, Rome, Paris and New York.
11 This interpretation presupposes a certain familiarity about the author on the part of the
audience. A substantial article in the theatre program by Stig Torsslow about the biographical
background for the play provided essential information in this respect, as did O’Neill’s dedication
to his wife Carlotta, this too reprinted in the program.
7. Yukio Mishima, Madame de Sade
Those who visited one of B’s stage performances of Yukio Mishima’s play
Madame de Sade, opening at the Small Stage of Dramaten on April 8, 1989,1
could via the theatre program be informed both about the author, the
play, and the life and work of its absent central figure, Marquis Donatien-
Alphonse-François de Sade (1740-1814). They could learn that what most
people take to be the name of the Japanese writer – characteristically the
name of a noble samurai family – is actually a pseudonym for Kimitaké
Hiraoka (1925-70).2
The theatre program quotes Mishima‘s post-face to the American transla-
tion of the play:
Reading The Life of the Marquis de Sade by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa I was

most intrigued as a writer, by the riddle of why the Marquise de Sade,
after having demonstrated such absolute fidelity to her husband during
his long years in prison, should have left him the moment that he was at
last free. This riddle served as the point of departure for my play, which
is an attempt to provide a logical solution. I was sure that something
highly incomprehensible, yet highly truthful, about human nature lay
behind this riddle […].
This play might be described as “Sade seen through women’s eyes.” I

was obliged therefore to place Madame de Sade at the centre, and to
consolidate the theme by assigning all the other parts to women. Madame
de Sade stands for wifely devotion; her mother, Madame de Montreuil,
for law, society, and morality; Madame de Simiane for religion; Madame
de Saint-Fond for carnal desires; Anne, the younger sister of Madame de
Sade, for feminine guilelessness and lack of principles; and the servant
Charlotte for the common people. I had to involve these characters with
Madame de Sade and make them revolve around her, with something like
the motion of the planets. I felt obliged to dispense entirely with the usual,
1 The play had earlier been produced at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki in 1970, in a transla-
tion by Bo Carpelan and directed by Karl-Axel Heiknert. A guest performance at Dramaten
took place in 1970. B did not see it.
2 What the program did not mention is that Mishima visited Stockholm in 1967. He then
brought with him Madame de Sade, obviously in the hope that B would be willing to produce
it. But the two never met (Christina Palmgren Rosenqvist, Vi, 1989, 17: 41). Three years later
Mishima died.
102 The Serious Game
trivial stage effects, and to control the action exclusively by the dialogue;
collisions of ideas had to create the shape of the drama, and sentiments
had to be paraded throughout in the garb of reason. (Mishima, 1967: 107)
This is an important clue to this all-women play,3 especially in its indication

that the characters are primarily incarnations of conflicting ideologies.
But it is questionable whether the author has managed to provide a logical
answer to Madame de Sade’s final volte-face. The implication is that not
until she has seen herself portrayed in her husband’s novel Justine4 can
she reject him.5 Is her rejection of her husband at the end an apostasy or
a renaissance?6 Either interpretation is both dramaturgically and ideo-
logically problematic, since it means that the heroine joins the despicable
established fold in her view that her husband is a monster. But if we, in
this ‘allegorical’ play, see her as a representative of latter-day mankind,
her late conversion makes sense. If we see de Sade as a figure whose life
coincides not only with a radically increased freedom on the part of human-
ity concomitant with a fast technical development, soon leading to the
breakthrough of industrialism; if we further realise that for a long time
this freedom and technical development have been regarded as benevolent
for mankind – until, with the arrival of the atom bomb, a negative view
began to emerge; so that now it seems “logical” to arrive at the view that the
development since the time of de Sade will land us not in a paradise but in a
hell. This, it could be argued, is de Sade’s representative role of being “God’s
miscarriage” and “aborted foetus.” And this is what the expression “Alphonse
is myself!”7 apparently means, a line Mishima provocatively hands over
to the audience for self-identification. Seen in this way, Renée de Sade – a
contradictory blend of Christian name and surname – is significantly the
title character and her realisation at the end that she has been betrayed
by her husband for a very long time becomes painfully applicable to us all.
3 Four years earlier B had staged Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman at the Residenztheater in
Munich, a drama in which, B said, “four women fight for a cadaver” (Timm, 1994: 140), a rather
apt description of Mishima’s play.
4 The title character’s name is derived from Latin justus (righteous).
5 The situation is quite similar to that in Strindberg’s To Damascus II, where the Lady is
forbidden by the Stranger to read his hateful book about the marriage between him and his first
wife. When she does so, their relationship receives a blow – but it holds. B staged To Damascus
I-II at Dramaten in 1974.
6 The name Renée is derived from Latin renatus (regenerated).
7 “Alphonse” is what the women call de Sade rather than Donatien, his first name. Perhaps the
similarity between Alphonse and Adolf, in French Adolphe, the Christian name of the foremost
icon of evil in our time, has played a role.
Yukio Mishima, Madame de Sade 103
In his post-face, Mishima also comments on the semi-documentary

nature of his play:
I have in several instances deliberately altered facts in the lives of the

historical characters of the play. These changes were dictated by theatri-
cal necessity. […] Of the six characters, Madame de Sade, Madame de
Montreuil, and Madame de Sade’s sister, Anne, are historical; the other
three were created by myself. (Mishima, 1967: 108)
The chronology of Marquis de Sade included in the theatre program pro-

vides further examples of deviations from historical reality. Thus de Sade’s
three children with Renée, all born before 1772, are never mentioned or
even indicated. And whereas Renée’s sister Anne in the play is still alive
in 1790 and is married, her real counterpart was never married and died
already in 1781.
De Sade’s novel Justine exists in three versions, each bolder than the one
before. The first was completed in 1787 but not published until 1930. The
second was published in 1791. The third was completed in 1797. In the play
Renée reads the novel in 1790 and Madame de Simiane, by implication,
already in 1772.
In at least one respect Mishima relies on a period view different from
ours. In the 18th century, the theatre program informs us, “an erotic relation-
ship with a sister-in-law was regarded as incest. Madame de Montreuil could
never forgive de Sade that Anne had become his mistress.”
Set in France in the autumn of 1772 (Act I), in September 1778 (Act II),
and in April 1790 (Act III), the play describes both a socio-ideological and
a corresponding seasonal development. Undoubtedly in conformance with
the Japanese original, the American version of the play contains relatively
few stage directions. Photographs from the first production – at Kinokuniya
Hall in Tokyo in 1965 – reveal that the same French 18th century scenery was
retained throughout and that the costumes were all attuned to the rococo
period; Countess de Saint-Fond’s “riding habit,” for example, consisted of a
hat and a long, billowing dress. None of the women carried a fan.
B’s theatre program opened with a kind of thematic declaration: a
lesbian engraving from de Sade’s Justine, showing six naked women, four
of them having sex with one another, one couple lustfully a tergo, another
sado-masochistically; a third waiting for their turn. The room carries con-
notations of aristocracy and learnedness. Matching this engraving were
close-ups of the six actresses of the performance. In this way naked female
bodies, all similar, were combined and contrasted with female faces of
different kinds and with different expressions. The close-ups were preceded
by a photograph of the inside of an anonymous hand pointing to the right
– as if the director was introducing his cast.8 The engraving was followed
by a poem by the prominent 20th century Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf,9
beginning:
Each human being is a world, peopled

by blind creatures rebelling
against the royal I that rules them. (My transl.)
This was clearly a hint of how to interpret the performance where, in addi-
tion to the verbal descriptions of de Sade’s perversities, including those with
Renée, the audience was confronted with Anne‘s ‘incestuous’ relationship
with him, Countess de Saint-Fond‘s lesbianism, and Madame de Simiane‘s
and Charlotte’s probable past erotic relationship with Saint-Fond and their
titillating interest in Justine. Even Madame de Montreuil could be included
in the list. When she put her hand on her daughter’s breast, the audience
were made to understand “that the source of the perversion [was] perhaps
not only the infamous libertine de Sade” (Ellefsen in Dagens Nyheter).
The playing time of B’s production was about two hours and a quarter.
There were two intermissions. The director slightly changed the seasonal
progression into late summer (Act I), autumn (Act II), and winter/early
spring (Act III). He also implicitly extended the historical period to our own
time by having Saint-Fond’s riding habit in Act I look decidedly modern
and by having Anne in Act III appear in fur coat and smoke cigarettes
as if she belonged to la belle époque; the costumes and setting of this act
in fact recalled less the French 1789 revolution than the Russian 1917 one
(Andréason in Göteborgs-Posten). The simple setting, designed by Charles
Koroly “with little signs quoted from the author’s cultural background”
(Zern in Dagens Nyheter), remained spatially the same in all acts – Madame
de Sade’s salon – yet changed its character in conformance with changes in
the mental climate between the six women. “From the Japan-inspired first
act with a cherry tree projected between the columns in the background it
8 The modern shirt cuff on the wrist suggests that it is the hand of the director. Rokem (2000:
118ff.) points out that Marquis de Sade plays a part in the performance comparable to that of the
director in his combination of visual absence and strong impact. Sjöman (2001: 306f.) reminds us
that the situation in the play is the same as in B’s film About All These Women, where we never
get to see the main male figure, only his women.
9 “To me,” B has said, “that poem represents what has kept me busy all my life […] without
me being able to express it as precisely” (Sörenson in Svenska Dagbladet March 30, 1989).
[became], in the second act, a room glowing with the lava streams of passion
(the dresses are then red, pink and orange).” In the final act “they [were]
marked by the chill of the revolution: clouds in the background, a soughing
wind sounding like an excited mob at a distance” (Andréason). In the first
two acts it was highly stylised, spacious and devoid of properties, l’ancien
régime; in the third it was more realistic and crammed with furniture – as
if the aristocratic characters were now, after the revolution, forced to share
much less space than before.
Though set in 18th century France, B’s Madame de Sade had formally
much in common with Japanese nō drama, an aristocratic form of drama
that strongly appealed to Mishima and at which he himself had earlier
tried his hand. In nō drama, where all the parts are played by men, every
motion is controlled by set rules. The costumes are rich and elaborate. A
full mask and a wig are used by the protagonist, who is called shite. At the
back of the stage, square in shape, there is always a painting of a pine tree.
Stage properties are few, simple and highly conventionalised. The most
important is the fan. The chanting of the actor is accompanied by a chorus
who sometimes sing the actor’s part while he is dancing. There is also a small
orchestra, comprising of a flute and various drums. The second role, called
waki, functions as a mediator between the shite and the spectators who are
sitting around the stage (Scott, 1966: 43-50). “Performers rely on the fact that
their audience, being aware of the theatrical alphabet (kata) […] are able to
recognise everything by being shown a part […]. Kata are well-established
signifiers metonymically communicated to the audience” (Raz, 1983: 267).
B adjusted to nō in several ways, especially in Acts I-II. Given a fairly
small western picture-frame theatre, he had the stage extended over the
first five rows of the auditorium to enhance actor-audience rapport; this
construction could alas not be maintained when the production was touring
(Marker/Marker, 1992: 315, note 12). Although he preferred a semi-circular
stage, B nevertheless retained the nō square in the form of a rectangle,
marking the central acting area, in a colour differing in shade from that of
the floor surrounding it. The semi-circular rear wall, divided into three parts
separated by broad columns, could give associations not only to Japanese nō
drama but also to Greek tragedy and to Christian altar triptychs. The nō pine
tree was in Act I replaced by a cherry tree in blossom, “as if fetched from a
French 18th interior, à la mode japonaise” (Björkstén in Svenska Dagbladet).
Like the costumes in this act, it could be seen as an indication of how reality
is covered – masked(?) – by an idyllic and attractive veneer. The stage was
in the first two acts devoid of any properties – except those carried by the
characters (fans, riding weal, book, letter). The rococo costumes were here,
as one could expect from women belonging to the aristocracy, exceedingly

rich, in mild pastel colours, and ample use was made of fans. Incidentally
subdued music on koto, the Japanese zither, could be heard.
Unlike a Japanese nō director, B could not rely on any kata understood
by his audience. Movements, gestures, and mimicry had to be interpreted
within a western framework, mostly lacking fixed semiotic meanings.
The highly stylised manner of presentation nevertheless assured a certain
approximation to the Japanese style of acting.
The use of the fans is a case in point. Spread to protect the bearer from
sacrilegious utterances (Simiane), to bar someone off, to enable eavesdrop-
ping, to hide the truth behind formal/traditional behaviour (Montreuil,
Renée) or behind a false depiction of reality (Anne), the fans functioned
as masks to disguise one’s true identity. In this respect, they had their
counterparts both in the voluminous, elegant dresses of Acts I-II, hiding
one’s body and in the high wigs, hiding one’s hair. Like these other period-
bound signifiers, the fans figured prominently in the first two acts but not
at all in the revelatory third act.
Contrasting with the aristocratic, embroidered costumes were those of
Charlotte, the servant, and Saint-Fond, the ideological rebel and adept of
de Sade. Representing the common man, Charlotte wore a simple dress.
Saint-Fond’s emancipated riding costume in Act I consisted of a pale yellow
tunic and pants, the latter made of chamois,10 black riding-boots, sleek dark
hair, black gloves, a black riding weal in her hand. The costume indicated
at once her straightforwardness, her identification with de Sade, and her
lesbianism.
In Act II she appeared in a more feminine guise. (Combined with her mas-
culine appearance in Act I it seemed to indicate her androgynous nature.)
Entering in a red robe and with a golden half-mask, she let Charlotte remove
both. The unmasking revealed a golden dress below a deathly white face
with blackened lips, an incarnation, it would seem, of her pride in daring to
demonstrate that she was, as she said tongue-in-cheek, “a depraved woman.”
In the first two acts, the movements and gestures of the characters were
carefully designed with the help of choreographer Donya Feuer. The women
oscillated between proximity and distance, contact and isolation. Simiane’s
hypocritical signs of the cross in Act I were emphatically contradicted
when Saint-Fond, in Act II, in accordance with the black mass she had
earlier described, spread her blood-tainted arms and pierced hands to form
10 The pants were put on damp to fit the body like a glove (Bergman/Harning, 2008: 142).
a living cross, an antichrist emblem in the sense that Christ’s prerogative

to suffering seemed questioned.
The key sentence “Alphonse is myself!,” first uttered by Saint-Fond, later
repeated by Renée, was visually concretised and expanded in B’s handling
of the book that was the primary reason for Renée’s ‘conversion’ at the end:
de Sade’s Justine.
In the opening, Simiane was seen reading a small, black book. After a
little while she put it inside her dress. Considering her Catholicism, soon
to be proclaimed in the form of repeated signs of the cross, the spectator
at this point would assume that the book was a religious book of some sort.
When Saint-Fond, who had obviously not only read Justine but also been
deeply influenced by it, a little later mentioned the number of whippings
de Sade gave and received from a naked woman – 215, 179, 225, 240 – Simi-
ane immediately added this up to 859. She was already familiar with the
number because – this was the implication – she had just read the passage
Saint-Fond referred to. In other words, the book Simiane was reading in
the beginning was Justine.11
Eighteen years later Renée has read the book. At the opening of Act
III she was seen reading it. A little later she showed the most perverse
pages to Simiane, not realising that Simiane was already acquainted with
it. Instead of being titillated, Renée was shocked by the book because it was
so recognisable to her. She shunned this direct confrontation with Adolphe
in herself. Like Simiane, she now sought protection in the bosom of the
Church by becoming a nun. Her rejection of de Sade was demonstrated in
action when she threw his book to the floor – where it, in a brief epilogue
added by B, was first kicked by Charlotte (the official attitude), then picked
up and carried away by her. Representing at once the third estate – the
common man – and the revolution, Charlotte had little reason to reject
Justine which, after all, was a testimony to aristocratic perversity. Embracing
the book, one critic remarked, “a Bible for the time to come” […], she [went]
to meet the centuries that will be hers” (Bo Lundin in Göteborgs-Tidningen).
The printed word, it has been said, propelled the French revolution. Also in
this capacity B’s Justine was emblematic.
Justine, Renée tells Simiane, is about two sisters, Juliette and Justine. The
former devotes herself to depravity, the latter defends her virtue. Nonethe-
less, Juliette is rewarded, Justine punished. It is easy to recognise the parable
of the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32) as the paragon for this description of
11 Cf. B’s remark in the prompt script: “We must never get rid of Simiane’s enormous craving
and passion.”
worldly injustice. In Mishima’s play, Anne, the younger sister plays the
part of the prodigal son, and Renée, the older sister, the part of his virtuous
brother.
B immediately demonstrated Anne’s selfish narcissism by means of a
mirror sequence. The mirror, placed between Anne and the audience, was
purely imaginary; from Anne’s movements and gestures the spectators
could conclude that she was mirroring herself.
The most obvious expansion with regard to the text concerned the serv-
ant, Charlotte. Like Mishima’s, B’s Charlotte underwent a striking change
from adjustment to her superiors in Act I to subdued revolt against them
in Act III. This change was indicated both in her movements – her anxious
hurrying to assist them in Act I was replaced by an almost lethargic attitude
in Act III – and in her way of addressing them. But whereas Mishima has
her enter and exit in agreement with her servant role, B had her remain
in the visualised space virtually throughout the performance. Frequently
eavesdropping behind a pillar to what the other women said and did, she
was the only character who experienced the complete action. As such, she
was, like the waki, a mediator between stage and audience, a representa-
tive of the voyeurs on the other side of the stage. Also in this sense the
symbolic part allotted to her by the author – that of the common man – was
meaningfully secured.
The play opens with Simiane and Saint-Fond waiting in Montreuil’s
salon after having been summoned by her to use their influence to get her
son-in-law, the Marquis de Sade, out of prison. Both ladies pledged their
help, Simiane using her contacts in the church and Saint-Fond her circle of
lovers. Soon Renée arrives and we learn that the Marquis has escaped from
prison and been on the run for months.
B’s curtainless performance opened with an empty stage, representing
Madame de Montreuil’s salon, and with subdued koto music. Lights came
up encircling part of the red rectangular carpet indicating the central act-
ing area. Charlotte entered followed by Simiane, whom she had obviously
received at the front door and now showed the way in. After curtseying to
the visiting Baroness she made her exit. Waiting for Madame de Montrueil
to appear Simiane took up the little book, earlier identified as Justine, and
began to read. Charlotte soon returned to usher in a second visitor, the
Countess de Saint-Fond. She too was greeted with the servant’s humble
curtseying. Saint-Fond immediately began to complain that although
Montreuil had herself invited her, she now kept her waiting. Showing her
irritation at this possibly class-determined manner – a marquise ranks
higher than a countess – by impatiently walking back and forth, her restless
behaviour starkly contrasted with Simiane’s static hiding herself behind her
book as if it was a fan. Saint-Fond’s complaint was frontally addressed to
the audience rather than to the two women on the stage. It was in essence a
thinking aloud, supported by the spread-out positions of the three women
at this moment, accentuating the isolation of all three.
A fairly early sequence in Act I, in which four of the six women are
present, describes how de Sade was burnt in effigie; it was staged as follows:
On the stage are simiane left, saint-fond and montreuil right. In the
background charlotte.
montreuil. […] Since the accused [de Sade] was absent and his
whereabouts unknown, his portrait was burned at the stake. All frontal.
charlotte walks to extreme right, stops there. Although I was here in
Paris myself, I could see the flames licking at the gentle smile and blond
hair of my son-in-law’s portrait, while the mob cheered…
simiane. This was perhaps the first glimpse of the fire of hell in our world.
saint-fond. The crowd must have been screaming: “Pile on the fire!” –
“Make it burn!” And the fire was only the jealousy people felt for all the
vices they themselves were unable of.
montreuil. “Pile on the fire!” – What would we do, if shouts and screams
reached all the way here? I’ve heard that some of the rabble shrieked my
daughter’s name, and even mine.
simiane. “Pile on the fire!” – It must have been a purifying fire. When
the Marquis’ portrait was burned, his sins were atoned for.
saint-fond. “Pile on the fire!” – The whips of flame lashed brutally at his
pale cheeks and blond hair. Two hundred fifteen, one hundred seventy-
nine… I’m convinced the portrait was smiling. saint-fond turns her
head and faces right.
Simiane’s religious belief in a purifying fire – she sides with the inquisition
– contrasts both with Saint-Fond’s contempt of the fire and conviction that
de Sade in effigy would condescendingly smile at it and with Montreuil’s
egoistic fear for her own life. In Mishima’s text, this passage lacks stage
directions. As often when anxious not to distract the audience from what
was being said, B turned it into a very immobile sequence.
Act II opened with Anne’s showing Renée a letter that proved that
Alphonse was to be released from the prison. Rejoicing at the good news,
the two sisters sat down on the floor and lovingly embraced each other as if
they were children again.12 But when Renée said that Alphonse (like another
Don Juan) always pursued the unattainable and was therefore unable to
love anyone, not even Anne, Anne withdrew from her sister’s caresses and
took revenge by asking Renée, in the third person: “Not my sister either?”
The blissful moment of union was gone. A little later Saint-Fond revealed
that Alphonse’s freedom had been of short duration and that he was back
in jail. Although Anne had known this for quite some time, she had not told
Renée about it. Anne had in other words been playing a cruel game with
her sister who, after all, was her rival for Alphonse’s love.
In Act II the hitherto more or less disguised controversy between Mon-
treuil and Renée flares up. Siding with her husband, the daughter openly
accuses her mother– and here Montreuil’s allegorical role is particularly
obvious – of being morally corrupt. This controversy, by which the second
act concludes, was presented as follows:
montreuil is standing at extreme left, renée at extreme right.

montreuil […] I have no intention of being burned at the stake.
renée. And I don’t intend to die like a genteel whore with her mite saved
up against old age.
montreuil screams. Renée! Agitated. I could slap you! Moves from right
to center
renée moves left, kneels before montreuil. charlotte in background
moves from left to center.
renée. You’re welcome to slap me! But what will you do if I curl up with
pleasure at being slapped?
montreuil raises her red-gloved right hand as if to hit renée, but slowly
lets it sink to caress her cheek. Ohh – your face when you say that…
renée. What about my face?
montreuil in a low voice. You have become so like Alphonse that I get
afraid.
renée caressingly leans her face against montreuil’s right hand, then
suddenly bites it. What did Madame de Saint-Fond say – “Alphonse is
myself!” montreuil slowly takes a step back, turns around and exits in
background left. Koto bars. “Alphonse is myself!” Koto bars. Whispers.
“Alphonse is myself!” Koto bars as renée slowly exits in background right
and charlotte exits in background left. Slow black-out.
12 Cf. B’s remark in the prompt book: “The two sisters now suddenly form a strange unity, a
physical and mental kinship is established.” The moment of loving reunion recalls that between
sisters Karin and Maria in Cries and Whispers (1973).
For her last key speech in this sequence, Mishima suggests, Montreuil should
raise her voice, whereas Renée’s quotation of Saint-Fond should be said
“laughingly.” B ignored both stage directions.
The French revolution brought about drastic changes. In Act III wide red
curtains between the windows formed the background for Montreuil and
Renée seated in chairs, facing the audience. The floor was bare, wooden
and grey. Between the two warmly dressed women there was a grey iron
stove. Montreuil wore a black dress, black woolen gloves, a grey shawl, and
a black crocheted cap covering her bald head. Next to her was a cane and off
and on she raised a lorgnette, indications of her ageing. Renée wore a dark
red dress and a grey woollen shawl was wrapped round her head recalling
a nun’s veil. Her brown hair was sleek like Saint-Fond’s in Act I. Through
glasses she was reading the little black book Simiane had been reading in
Act I, Justine. Grey, black, and red were now the dominant colours.
Charlotte entered and put more coal in the stove.13 The slogan “Pile on
more wood!” now seemed to apply to de Sade’s family. At least it was an
indication of the cold the new regime had brought about for the aristocratic
women now poorly dressed. On the other hand Charlotte’s black dress – she
was mourning her former landlady Saint-Fond – looked quite elegant. That
the relations between her and her mistress(es) were changed appeared
also from Charlotte’s neglect to usher in visitors from the front door. Anne,
just back from another visit to Venice, we have noted, wore a long brown
fur coat, a matching fur bonnet and long dark-red gloves; inside the coat
a dark-red dress with a white pattern of a cherry tree in blossom could
be glimpsed. As soon as she had entered she took off her coat and gloves,
picked up a pocket mirror and looked at it as she powdered herself. She then
took up a cigarette with a holder, lit it on the stove and began drawlingly
and indifferently to describe Saint-Fond’s cruel death in Marseille. It was
a compassionless, cynical description worthy of a de Sade. She revealed
that Saint-Fond, dressed like a prostitute, had been trodden down in a riot.
Once dead she had become “the goddess of the people.” This, Anne – quite
unhistorically – concluded, was the start of the French revolution.
Anne’s absolute contrast, Simiane, was the next to enter. Her black-and-
white dress revealed that she had become a nun. She had come to fetch
Renée to the convent she had helped her enter. Soon the two were seen in a
pietà position, Renée resting her head in Simiane’s – Mater Ecclesia’s – lap.
13 The filling of the stove to keep warm recalls a situation at the end of Fanny and Alexander,
which again points back to the matrimonial scene in B’s 1970 production of A Dream Play.
A brutal knocking on the front door 14 indicated that the liberated and now
powerful de Sade had arrived. He was not let in. The final line of the play was
Renée’s order to Charlotte: “Tell him to leave. Tell him: ‘The Marquise never
wants to see him again.’” There was a logical reason for this unexpected
reversal on Renée’s part. She had just decided to enter a convent. But in
addition to this and more importantly her final line signified a total and
definite rejection of what de Sade stood for.
Before this happened, Mishima’s Renée speaks of “a holy light blinding
all beholders.” To Simiane this is the holy light of God but Renée refers to
“another kind of light.” Alphonse, she envisions, “puts evil upon evil and
climbs the crest of the evil. Soon he will touch eternity. Alphonse has built
a back staircase to salvation.” Simiane replies that God will demolish this
staircase. But Renée protests: “No – God has perhaps ordered Alphonse to
build it.” Renée apparently compares Alphonse to Lucifer or Satan, the fallen
archangel whose name means light-carrier. And she keeps the question open
where the source of evil and light is to be found. “I shall spend the rest of
my life,” she says, “constantly asking God this question.”
Renée’s “holy light” was by B complemented with a visual one, the most
spectacular light effect in the production:
renée is standing on a low stool, in frontal position, her right hand raised,
her face lit. simiane, dressed as a nun, is standing in semi-darkness in the
background right.
renée […] At that moment Louder. the sky breaks. A flood of light showers
down Puts her right hand to her forehead, in a low voice. – a holy light
Lowers her hand. blinding all beholders.15 And Alphonse, perhaps, is the
essence of that light. Blinding white light on the stage turns Renée white.
Her head remains turned upward as the light dies out.
In the interview preceding the TV version of the performance, B declared

that the play’s key sentence is Renée’s statement: “The world we’re living
in now is a world created by the Marquis de Sade.” She obviously refers to
the horrors of the French revolution. But when she speaks of “the banquet
14 Reminiscent of the Commander’s ominous knocking at the end of Molière’s Don Juan, staged
by B three times who also used the Commander’s launching of Don Juan into hell at the end of
his film The Devil’s Eye (1960).
15 In the prompt script B asks himself: “What kind of light does she speak of? [...] Here every-
thing becomes very enigmatic not to say impenetrable.”
attended by millions of corpses, the quietest of banquets,”16 it may nowadays,

B found, be seen as a reference to the annihilation camps of World War II,
the height of sadism in world history. In the “blinding white light” at the end
of his Madame de Sade, B could instantly show how Renée’s experience
of Alphonse as an incarnation of man’s destructive tendency now, two
hundred years later, could be shared by humanity at large. Not until the end
of the rehearsal period did B, he revealed in the TV interview preceding the
TV version of his stage production, discover the connection between the
blinding light and another deed of evil: the invention and use of the atom
bomb, today the universal icon of global destruction. The “blinding white
light” in the stage version was replaced in the TV version by a projection of
the mushroom cloud following the explosion of the atom bomb.
The production of Madame de Sade received superlatives everywhere.
All the women actors were praised. The critics were especially amazed at
B’s ability to make dynamic theatre out of a rather static play. There were
guest performances in Århus, Tokyo, Jerusalem, Glasgow, Antwerp, Lisbon,
Parma, Vilnius, New York, Taiwan and Budapest.
16 This is a very free rendering, suiting B’s purpose, of Keene’s “banquets where a million
corpses lie befuddled with carousing, the quietest of banquets.”
8. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
B’s documented interest in A Doll’s House goes back to 1948 when he adapted
it for a planned Hollywood film version which, however, never materialised
(Steene, 2005: 80). Much later, on April 30, 1981, B’s production of Ibsen’s
Nora, as the play is often called in Germany, opened at the Residenztheater
in Munich.1 Virtually the same text formed the basis for his second produc-
tion of the play on the Big Stage of Dramaten. It now carried the traditional
Swedish title Ett dockhem.2
A performance intended for a southern German audience in the early
1980s must be different in some respects from one intended for a Swedish
public around 1990. Besides the temporal gap, there is the geographical
one, the sociopolitical and theatrical climate in Bavaria being rather dif-
ferent from that in Sweden. There is the linguistic difference, a German
translation of Ibsen’s play being necessarily more removed from Ibsen’s
Dano-Norwegian text than a Swedish one. Moreover, in Munich B was
forced to deal with a language which was not his own. In Stockholm he was
in that respect on a par with his actors who furthermore shared his social
and cultural referential system.
In addition to these general distinctions, a more specific one may be
added. As earlier noted, the Munich Nora was part of a triad, the other
plays being Strindberg’s Miss Julie and B’s own Scenes from a Marriage. As
the titles indicate, the three plays all focussed on man-woman relations:
Helmer-Nora, Jean-Julie, Johan-Marianne. The triad soon became known as
the B project. In Stockholm A Doll’s House was presented as an independent
play. Nonetheless the two productions had much in common.
Ibsen’s play was drastically cut; nearly one-third of the text was removed;
the Nurse, the Maid, the Porter and two of the three children were omitted.
The three acts in the play were replaced by fifteen scenes.
It is a common misconception that the Helmers live in a house of their
own. But the text explicitly states that they live in a “flat.” To make this clear
1 The German script has been published in English translation in Marker/Marker, 1983: 47-99;
this book also contains a discussion of the Munich production (19-31). For an analysis of this
production, see also Marker/Marker, 1991: 229-45.
2 In English, the play has been variously called A Doll’s House and A Doll House. The former
seems to be a British preference, the latter an American. “What few translators seem to realise is
that Ibsen’s title does not mean a house for dolls, which in Norwegian is dukkehus, or dukkestue.
Before Ibsen, et dukkehjem was a small, cozy, neat home; his play gave it the pejorative meaning”
(Haugen, 1979: 103).
to the spectators, B opened his production with a black-and-white projection

on the curtain of an art nouveau apartment house (Olofgörs, 1995: 223).
From this elegant façade the spectators moved – as in a camera zoom – to
the Helmer apartment above. The play was acted out on a quadrilateral
platform, surrounded by high walls, topped by eight small barred windows,
making it look like a prison. By surrounding the Helmer home with a huge
vertical space, B diminished the characters and turned them into dolls in a
doll’s house. “The little room – the home – [was] placed inside a larger room
which [was] society,” Zern wrote in Expressen, and this larger room “in the
course of the evening [was] transformed into a universe, a human cosmos,
a home on earth.” Ibsen’s unity of setting was replaced by the presentation
of three different rooms of the Helmer apartment: the living room, the
dining room, and the bedroom.
Scenery and costumes suggested that B’s Doll’s House was set some twenty
years later than Ibsen’s, around 1900. The union flags in the Christmas tree
indicated that the action took place prior to 1905, when the union between
Sweden and Norway was dissolved. Moving the play closer to our time
increased the audience’s sense of being in rapport with the characters; Nora’s
breaking out of her marriage seemed in this way more plausible. The fashion
around 1900 also helped to make the characters’ bodies, especially Nora’s,
erotically present. Last but not least, since the opening took place in one
of the most beautiful art nouveau buildings in Stockholm – Dramaten was
completed in 1908 – there was a great correspondence between the period
in which the action was set and the theatrical environment around it.
This was indicated in the very beginning when a strong spotlight lit up
the proscenium painting above the stage, showing a frontal Eros surrounded
by the three parcae. This highlighting of a celestial level seemed to turn
the drama acted out below it into a human puppet play, dominated by
love – or lack of love.
Thematically the production aimed at an “Ehrenrettung for Helmer”
(prompt copy),3 who when the play opens has just become head of a bank.
3 Cf. B’s comment on Helmer in the Munich production: “He’s a decent man who is trapped
in his role of being the man, the husband. He tries to play his role as well as he can – because
it is the only one he knows and understands” (Marker/Marker, 1983: 12f.). B clearly defended
Helmer but his arguments were unconvincingly vague. In what sense is Helmer trapped in
his male role? And how does he “play his role as well as he can”? A more balanced picture of
husband-wife relations was to be seen in B’s TV series Scenes from a Marriage (1973), where
Johan and Marianne, having witnessed a performance of A Doll’s House discuss the marital
relationship in the play. B’s productions of A Doll’s House in many ways seemed inspired by
Scenes from a Marriage (Törnqvist, 1995: 164ff.).
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House 117
Ibsen was forced to turn Helmer into an authoritarian husband to make

his audience accept Nora’s decision to leave him. A century later this kind
of Helmer comes over as a caricature and Nora’s choice that was so shock-
ing in Ibsen’s time now seems much less problematic. B’s Helmer was a
man not without idealism and very committed to his work. In an added
passage he told his wife: “Nora, I have acquired my position by opposing
in the newspaper the way the bank was run, and by being harsh at the last
shareholders’ meeting.” After Krogstad, in an attempt to blackmail Nora,
had boasted that within a year not Helmer but he, Krogstad, would run the
bank, B added the following lines:
nora. So that is what you want.

krogstad. That is what I want.
nora.You want to deprive him of his future?
krogstad. He has deprived me of my future.
nora. The bank is his mission in life. Should he give up his mission and
make himself dependent of you?
krogstad. Precisely, Mrs Helmer, and that he should do out of love for
you.
Instead of Ibsen’s authoritarian prig and careerist, B’s Helmer was a man
who did his best to improve the morals of the bank; to dismiss the morally
tainted Krogstad, Helmer implies, was part of this endeavour. By modulating
the character in this way B clearly strived to make Helmer a representative
man for his audience.
A striking aspect was that during the whole performance the actors
never disappeared out of sight. Exits were indicated simply by their leav-
ing the platform stage for the background, where they remained seated
until their next entrance. With this device, 4 B placed his production in an
illusion-breaking tradition, indicating the constant flux between on-stage
and off-stage role-playing, between theatre and life. Moreover, by letting
the actors, when off-platform, form a stage audience, he provided a link
between them and the real audience. Combined with the barred windows
of the setting, the impression was that the stage audience was a jury in a
courtroom sitting in judgment on the marital relationship that was acted
4 Earlier used in his productions of The Misanthrope, where it would clash less with the
non-illusionistic style of the play and moreover provide a link with the habit in Molière’s time
to have the actors seated on the stage behind the wings.
out before them. But unlike a real jury, they themselves, when on-stage,
were indirectly involved in this relationship.
On the stage, representing the living room, a green art nouveau sofa
and armchair could be seen, as well as a decorated Christmas tree and a
heap of parcels. Behind the platform a green-tinted bourgeois art nouveau
dining room could be glimpsed: round table, chairs, and above the centrally
placed piano a large painting. Reminiscent of a picture out of a photo album,
the setting seemed to indicate Nora’s vacillation between the world of the
present and the world of the past, the green colour bridging the two worlds.
In the second scene, the foreground shifted from green living room to
brown dining room, while the background, still green-tinted, now displayed
a sideboard with two candelabras, above it flowery art nouveau wallpaper,
and as in the former scene, a large painting. The brown colour, here as-
sociated with bourgeois materialism, was now set off against the green
of the background. With Krogstad’s appearance, the distance between
imprisoning, earthy reality and lofty dream – the candelabras turned the
background sideboard into a kind of altar – had increased. The round table
on the platform was mirrored in an almost identical table in the background
‘photo,’ creating an eerie, dreamlike effect. The impression that the play
was acted out in two different worlds – one three-dimensional and real, the
other two-dimensional and imaginary – was hereby strengthened. Since
the projected furniture in the background appeared larger than the real
pieces in the foreground, the doll’s house connotations of the scenery were
further underscored.
An aged Rank appeared in an elegant fin-de-siècle costume, whereas a
young successful Torvald Helmer was fashionably dressed according to the
dernier cri. Krogstad could be seen in a mold-green coat, while Mrs Linde
was dressed completely in black as though in mourning – although her
husband had been dead for three years. Her costume was clearly designed
to correspond to Nora’s at the end of the play, where it was clear that Nora
had taken over the role that Mrs Linde had outgrown. Nora first appeared
in an Empire dress, olive green above, brownish below and with an olive
green apron, on which a small N was symbolically embroidered inside a big
H. The colours of her dress closely matched that of the sofa on which she was
sitting, indicating her adjustment to the environment. Later, she appeared,
first in a pink silk dress with a broad black sash, then, after the fancy-dress
ball, in a black-and-white Capri costume, underneath which a bright red
petticoat could be glimpsed; she also wore a black shawl, as prescribed by
Ibsen. When Helmer had read the first, threatening letter from Krogstad,
he angrily ordered her to take off her shawl. It was an act of unmasking.
When he had read the second, conciliatory letter, he protectively laid the
shawl around her shoulders. The mask was put back in place.
Ibsen’s Nora leaves not only her husband but also her three small chil-
dren. Today, when most people would accept that a wife might divorce her
husband if she finds the marriage hollow, many would still claim that the
presence of young children should prevent her from doing so. But leaving
three children motherless is less sad than leaving a single child in such a
situation. After all, three children have one another. Consequently, B settled
for one child, a daughter, Hilde, who looked about six years old. Appearing
only at the beginning and end of the play, she was nevertheless symbolically
present throughout the performance in the form of her doll seated on one
of the chairs next to the acting area.
Ibsen’s text opens with the Christmas tree being delivered to the Helmers.
Already at this point the tree has a symbolic significance (Johnston, 1989:
145, Quigley, 1985: 99f.). B showed little interest in this rather reader-oriented
aspect. He exchanged Ibsen’s opening for one of his own and the tree was
already placed and decorated when the curtain rose.
Notwithstanding its realism, A Doll’s House contains a number of so-
liloquies, nearly all of them by Nora (Törnqvist, 2006: 54-63). The reason
for this is that the recipient needs to be informed about Nora’s increasing
anguish as the threats against her cumulate. The soliloquies are in other
words part of the preparatory technique and a sign of Ibsen’s dependency
on the conventions of the well-made play. Even the last line of the play is a
soliloquy. After Nora has left, Helmer says “with sudden hope. The miracle
of miracles…?”
For some recipients this may be an indication that Helmer may be able
to change; for others it is only a subjective indication that he hopes so at
this moment. In either case there is a vague suggestion of a possible reunion
and a new start.
Today we find the soliloquies disturbing, less because of their lacking
plausibility than because of their over-explicitness. B deleted all the so-
liloquies and replaced Helmer’s vaguely hopeful soliloquy, as we shall see,
with a desperate whisper.
The performance opened with a situation, created by the director, and
very different from Ibsen’s initial tipping sequence. Nora was sitting on
the sofa reading the end of a fairy tale aloud to her identically dressed
daughter: “...but a prince and his bride brought with them as much silver
as they could carry. And they moved to the castle east of the sun and west
of the moon.” The reading was accompanied by sweet, romantic piano
music, “The Maiden’s Prayer” (1851), as from a music-box. Having received
a goodnight kiss from her mother, Hilde left for bed. Nora lay down on the
sofa, whistling the tune that had just been heard, put one arm in the air,
then let it fall down as her whistling petered out.
What B presented in this opening was an emblematic situation, a key
to Nora’s existence: her desire to see life in terms of a fairy tale (with its
obligatory happy ending) and her vague awareness that life is anything but
that. Very effectively, it was demonstrated how Nora who, as an only child,
had herself figuratively speaking been brought up on fairy tales by her
father now continued this tradition with regard to her only daughter. Three
generations were implicitly interwoven in this initial situation, suggesting
a perpetuum mobile.
Sitting on the floor, Nora then began to unwrap the Christmas presents,
while calling for her husband: “Come here, Torvald, and see what I’ve
bought.” From a realistic point of view, this might seem strange, since in
Sweden Christmas presents are supposed to be hidden until Christmas Eve.
But what was important here was that the audience should see that Nora had
bought her daughter a doll for a Christmas present. The deeper significance
of this was not revealed until the end of the performance.
When Helmer joined Nora behind the Christmas parcels, they looked
like two little children – in accordance with B’s recurrent idea that grown-
ups are merely children masquerading as grown-ups. As we have seen,
psychological role-playing was continually stressed in the production.
“As far as I understand,” Strindberg (1982, 16: 14) writes in his preface
to Getting Married, “Nora offers herself for sale – to be paid for in cash.”
Strindberg’s idea that Nora ‘prostitutes’ herself was utilised already in the
opening of the performance.5 After all, B seemed to argue, it is not the
Nora-Rank relationship that is corrupt but the Nora-Helmer one. This was
demonstrated in the initial monetary scene:
helmer still sitting on the floor front-stage, takes out his wallet. Nora, what
do you suppose I have here?
nora who has been standing by the Christmas tree in the background,
jumps onto the sofa, triumphantly shouting. Money!
helmer. Good heavens, of course I realise it costs a lot to run a house
at Christmas time.
nora still on the sofa, picks one banknote after the other from helmer’s
open wallet – after each approving nod by him. Ten, twenty, thirty. He
5 Cf. B’s remark that Strindberg wrote “a wonderful analysis of A Doll’s House in his preface
to Married. Some of what he says is very perceptive” (Marker/Marker, 1983: 12).
closes the wallet but opens it again and lets her have one more. Forty. Oh
thank you, Torvald, thank you. I’ll make this go a long way.
helmer. And what have you thought of for yourself?
nora. What, for me? I don’t want anything.
helmer. Of course you do. Name something that you’d like to have –
within reason, of course.
nora. No, I really don’t know. As a matter of fact, though, Torvald...
helmer. Well?
nora embraces him. If you really want to give me something, you could
of course – you could –
helmer embraces her. Come on, let’s have it!
nora lies down on the floor and drags him with her. You could give me
money, Torvald. Stretching her legs in the air on either side of helmer
now lying on top of her. Only as much as you think you can spare. Then I
could buy something for it.
Here Helmer’s and Nora’s marriage was emblematically depicted. The coitus
position demonstrated how she was offering her body in exchange for the
money he had just been offering her. Their representative marriage was no
more than legalised prostitution. By presenting the Helmer marriage as starkly
as this, B provided a logical basis for Nora’s decision at the end to free herself
from a relationship which was degrading for both of them. The passage seemed
choreographically designed to contrast with Nora’s attitude at the end, where
she refuses to accept anything from her husband, now labeled a stranger.
Strindberg’s severe criticism of Nora refers not to the monetary scene
but to her exhibiting her silk stockings to Rank. In B’s interpretation, this
passage suggested anything but ‘prostitution’ on Nora’s part:
(nora is standing behind rank, who is sitting on a chair. Both face the
audience.) She puts her hands on his shoulders.
nora. Be nice now. Puts her hands over his eyes. Tomorrow you’ll see how
well I’ll dance. And that I do it only for you. And for Torvald, of course.
Removes her hands.
I’ll show you something. Takes up one of her black silk stockings, shakes it,
has it glide down across his forehead to his eyes. Silk stockings. Removes
the stocking from his eyes, lifts it up. Aren’t they beautiful? It’s very dark
in here now, of course, but tomorrow –. But how critical you look! Don’t
you think they’ll fit me? Puts the stocking around rank’s neck.
rank. I can’t really give you a qualified opinion on that.
nora looks at him, smilingly. Shame on you!
Substituting black stockings for Ibsen’s “flesh-coloured” ones and omitting

Nora’s “Oh well, I suppose you can look a bit higher if you want to,” B was
clearly not interested in emphasising the erotic relationship between Nora
and Rank. Rather, the scene stressed the fact that they both had imminent
death on their mind. When Nora blindfolded Rank’s eyes with her black
stocking, she visually turned him into a victim before an executioner. When
she put the stocking around his neck, she provided another ‘death sentence’
for him. Yet since the stocking belonged to Nora who was herself a victim
of circumstances and who might well be contemplating suicide already
at this point – a little later she manifestly did so – both gestures applied
also to her. The subtext of B’s version was not a regret that they could not
sleep with one another; it was rather a consoling and self-consoling ritual
suggesting of commonness in death.
Nothing in the play is outwardly as spectacular as Nora’s rehearsing of the
tarantella at the end of Act II, the dance she is to perform at the fancy-dress
ball the following evening.
On the most obvious level, Nora dances the tarantella to distract Helmer’s
attention from the fateful letter-box. Her wild dancing expresses her fear that
he will discover her crime. Helmer is unable to guide Nora but Rank, who is
himself doomed to die shortly, is more successful. Rank and Nora, both in the
shadow of death, understand one another intuitively. Helmer understands
nothing. The many references to failed attempts at guidance help to pinpoint
the fact that Nora, although she has herself asked Helmer for it, no longer
follows his instruction. Still respecting him, she is instinctively breaking
away from him. In this sense the tarantella prepares for her discovery at the
end that she and her husband have in fact never understood one another.
The reason why Nora practices a tarantella of all dances is because this
rapid, whirling, south Italian dance reminds Helmer and herself of their
happy time in and around Naples. But the tarantella means more. As used
by Ibsen, it forms a sophisticated motif which demands a certain factual
knowledge both of the dance and of the spider that has given the dance
its name:
The tarantula spider is reputedly poisonous, and anyone bitten by it is

likely to contract the disease of tarantism. This is ‘a hysterical malady,
characterized by an extreme impulse to dance’. And the cure for this
malady was held to be – dancing the tarantella. Thus, ‘the dancing was
sometimes held to be a symptom or consequence of the malady, some-
times practiced as a sovereign cure for it’. The symptom of the disease
and the cure for the disease are one and the same. (Quigley, 1985: 107)
The wildness with which Nora dances the tarantella is indeed similar to
what we would expect from someone bitten by the tarantula. Squeezed
between Krogstad’s demands and Helmer’s stern moralising, she has got the
poison in her system. Suicide is on her mind. And at the same time a vague
hope that a miracle might save her. The tarantella is a fitting, theatrically
powerful expression of her schizophrenic situation.
With Ibsen the sequence begins when Nora “plays the opening bars of
the tarantella” on the piano. Helmer then sits down at the piano and ac-
companies her as she begins to dance, swinging her tambourine. Displeased
with her manner of dancing, Helmer accepts Rank’s suggestion that he takes
over the accompaniment, finding that he, Helmer, will then be better able to
instruct Nora. But Nora at this point “pays no attention” to his instructions.
She goes on dancing wildly.
B considerably shortened the tarantella sequence. Gone was the piano.
Gone was Rank’s accompaniment. Gone was Mrs Linde’s sudden appear-
ance. Some twenty-two repartees were reduced to seven:
nora is sitting on the round table covered with a table cloth, her red Capri
costume on top of it. helmer stands next to her with the tambourine in his
hand. rank stands to the left.
nora. I shan’t be able to dance tomorrow if I don’t rehearse with you.
Stands up, puts her hands on helmer’s shoulders. I must try now im-
mediately. Torvald, you must correct me and Strokes his forehead and
cheek. lead me, the way you always do. Chuckles. Tears off the table cloth
and throws it and her Capri costume on the floor. Pulls up her pink dress,
thereby showing her naked legs, starts humming and dancing.
helmer sitting on the chair right, beats time with his hands. Slower, slower.
nora. It has to be like this. She dances ever wilder, beating the tambourine
with her hand.
helmer. Not so wild, Nora!
nora screams. It has to be like this.
helmer. No, no, this won’t do. Stop it, I say. nora throws away the tam-
bourine, puts her hands to her ears. Jumps from the table, runs to rank
and embraces him. Then runs to the chair right. helmer puts back the
cloth on the table. rank picks up the Capri costume and stands holding it.
nora sitting on the chair right in a dejected position. There you see for
yourself. You must show me right to the end. Promise, Torvald? Promise!
B reduced the situation and the dialogue to its essence, thereby stressing
Helmer’s inability to determine Nora’s way of life any longer. Even more
than Ibsen’s, B’s tarantella became an early demonstration of her revolt, a

preparation for her final breaking away from her husband. Danced on the
table, so that her legs could be seen by the two men, Nora’s tarantella had a
lascivious element of French cabaret in it, strengthening the sense of rebel-
lion. While her mild tenderness toward Helmer followed by her embrace of
Rank revealed her attitude to the two men. Helmer’s orderly concern with
the table cloth was as symptomatic of his mentality as was Rank’s concern
with Nora’s dress, a follow-up, as it were, of his concern with her stockings.
The ending was set in the Helmer bedroom.6 In the background the living
room and the dining room could again be seen as huge photographs. As
Nora contemplated her past life with Helmer, the three rooms visualised
their eight years together. The photo-album connotation seemed especially
relevant when Nora began to contemplate taking leave of her life, a mood
that might favour her remembrance of things past. At the end, Ellefsen in
Dagens Nyheter wrote, B’s Doll’s House “turns into scenes from a marriage,
into distant pictures of an old photo album, where soft shades finally change
into modern black-and-white.”
The idea behind the change of setting was that husband and wife have
spent a night together. He believed that she had reconciled herself with him.
She was inclined to think that this was their last night together. When the
scene opened, showing a slender white art nouveau double bed with a glaring
red bedspread, Helmer was seen asleep in it. When Nora entered, dressed in
a simple black coat and carrying a small travelling-bag, he woke up. In the
dark part of the stage on the left Nora was now seen standing, fully dressed in
‘mourning.’ To the right, bathed in a searing white light, Helmer was sitting in
bed, stark naked, defenceless, unmasked. On the bedpost hung the red jester’s
cap he had worn at the fancy-dress ball the night before. While explaining
her new position to him, Nora moved back and forth from the shade on the
left to the brightly lit area on the right, from isolation to communion – as
though she was struggling with the question: to leave or not to leave.
The ending was enacted as follows:
helmer sitting to the right in the double bed, looking down. Nora, – can I
never be anything but a stranger to you?
nora standing on the left, the travelling-bag in her hand. Oh, Torvald, then
the most wonderful thing would have to happen –
helmer looks up. Name it, this most wonderful thing!
6 B was not the first director who set the ending in the marital bedroom. In his 1953 London
production of the play, Peter Ashmore did the same.
nora puts the bag down, walks up to the bed. You and I would both have
to change so much that – Oh, Torvald... I don’t believe in wonders any
more. She turns and goes left, half covering her face with one hand. Takes
the black shawl in her left hand, the bag in her right one.
helmer. But I’ll believe in them. Tell me! Change so much that –?
nora turns away from him, wipes her eyes with her handkerchief, picks
up her travelling-bag, turns around and looks at him, in a warm but firm
voice. That our marriage could become a life together. Pause. Turns away.
Goodbye. Exits left.
helmer. Nora. Nora! Nora!! The front door slams shut. Whispers. Nora.
Darkness, curtain.
B’s in-depth choreography could be sensed in this unconventional way of

ending the play. While most directors would have Nora answer Helmer’s
question concerning “the most wonderful thing” straight away, B inserted a
pause at this point to ensure maximum suspense. In this way, the audience
was given time to wonder, with Helmer, what the most wonderful thing
might be – and so to feel empathy with him. In addition, the pause gave
proper weight to Nora’s key sentence.
In the source text this line reads: “At samliv mellem os to kunde bli’e
et ægteskab.” (That our life together could become a marriage.) For Ibsen
“marriage” was the viable concept in the line; for B, offering his version to
a present-day audience, it was rather “life together.” The director cleverly
updated the play – thereby adjusting it to the changes in man-woman
relations during the last hundred years – simply by having the two key words
change places. He had Nora say: “Att ett äktenskap mellan oss två blev ett
samliv.” (That the marriage between the two of us became a life together.)
The returning of the rings – the formal symbol of divorce – took place
in front of the projected black-and-white photo of the sideboard in the
dining room with its two candelabras, a setting recalling the altar in front
of which the marriage was once contracted and which was now annulled.
Eight years of married life were, as it were, contained in this fusing of two
significant moments.
As soon as the rings had been returned, Hilde appeared, silently watching
her mother’s leave-taking. Woken up by the shouting of the parents, she
became a witness to what was nothing like the happy fairy-tale ending
Nora had wished her good night with the opening. Hilde now wore a blue
nightdress – similar in style to the one Nora had been wearing in the begin-
ning – and carried the similarly dressed doll she had just received from her
mother in her arms. The device came close to what the Dutch refer to as
Droste effect, so called after the chocolate packets showing a nurse carrying
a Droste packet on her tray, this packet again showing a nurse carrying a
Droste packet on her tray, this packet... – ad infinitum. Left alone with her
father – just as Nora had once been left alone with her father – Hilde seemed
doomed to relive Nora’s experience. Deprived of her mother and lacking a
sister or brother, Hilde would have to console herself by playing the role of
mother to her doll. In his ending B in this way outlined the vicious circle
in which the single child with just one parent finds itself – a central issue
in a social environment where divorces tend to be the rule rather than the
exception.
When Nora made her final exit from the platform stage, she passed
by Mrs Linde and Krogstad sitting next to it. The happily united couple
was proxemically, and ironically, contrasted with the separating marital
partners. While the Munich Nora left through a closet door at the back of the
stage, the Stockholm Nora left via the auditorium – as if she was a member
of the audience, departing from the theatre along with them. This was an
ending very much in the spirit suggested in a study of the play, published
the same year as B’s Dramaten production:
Un metteur en scène a-t-il imaginé de faire jouer Maison de poupée

en costumes contemporains de sa mise en scène et, à la fin, pendant
qu’Helmer reste seul en scène, de faire venir Nora dans la salle, de lui
faire prendre place parmi les spectateur?
Mais le rideau, alors, pourrait-il se baisser? (Chevrel, 1989: 108)
Characteristic of B’s two productions of A Doll’s House was the reliance on

a strongly adapted version, in which much of Ibsen’s concern for realistic
plausibility – what we now tend to see as surface realism – was done away
with. As a result, a stylised psychological drama came to the fore in which
the off-stage characters were related to the audience. This attempt to bridge
the gulf between stage and auditorium was especially noticeable in the
Stockholm version, where the drama was acted out on a timeless, universal
platform between the art nouveau decor in the background and the art
nouveau auditorium in front. An earlier plan to have Nora also at the end
appear in an art nouveau coat was discarded in favour of a more anonymous,
less time-specific one, which could render her more representative and
relate her better to the audience.
While Nora’s emancipation was the central issue in the version presented
to the Bavarian audience, it was rather the consequences of her departure
for her only daughter – read: the next generation – that became the central
issue at the end of the version offered to the Swedish audience, an audience
increasingly aware of the problems pertaining to the children of parents
belonging to the divorcing generation. To put it differently: while the
Munich production focussed on the marital relationship, the Stockholm
one broadened the perspective. At the end, little Hilde vivified not only
the present situation. She also represented Nora as a child – Nora, too,
having been suddenly bereaved of a parent. By implication – the doll in her
arms – she suggested her own future single-parent role. As in the opening
of the production, three generations were in this way combined, suggesting
a fateful perpetuum mobile.7
B’s Doll’s House did not end with Torvald Helmer’s8 vague hope that
“the most wonderful thing” will come true. Instead his twice increasingly
loud and anguished shouting for “Nora!”, as she was departing, followed by
a powerless whispering of her name, indicated his shrinking hope that she
would ever come back.9
Most critics were enthusiastic about B’s fresh approach to the play and
especially praised the actress playing Nora, but some put question marks
at B’s reinterpretation of the relationship between the married couple.
There were guest performances in Madrid, Venice, Bergen, Glasgow, Oslo,
Copenhagen, New York, and in Japan (details missing).
7 Cf. B’s Wild Strawberries, where three generations are fatefully linked to each other.
8 B’s updated husband was actually more Torvald than Helmer.
9 “To me,” B once said, “the ending is exceedingly ambiguous. I don’t find it so impressive that
Nora departs. [...] I wanted him [Helmer] to sit there naked and vulnerable like a victim and the
child, too, to stand there” (Sjögren, 2002: 243).
9. Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt
For a long time Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, subtitled “A Dramatic Poem,” was regarded
as a play solely for the reader, a closet drama; it took nine years for it to
reach the stage. Today it is frequently produced, often by big companies
and renowned directors; with its multitude of characters and locations,
productions of it tend to be costly.1
B showed his interest in the play by producing it twice. The first pro-
duction took place at Malmö City Theatre in 1957. The translation was by
Karl-Ragnar Gierow. 90 actors appeared in 33 scenes. Rather than Grieg’s
or even Sæverud’s music, both specially composed for the play, B made
sparse use of Norwegian folk music. Max von Sydow in the title role was
“a dark-haired lad with gypsy blood in his veins.” Despite some cuts the
performance lasted almost five hours (Steene, 2005: 581f.).
In his second production, in 1991, about one third of the drama text was
omitted and the running time was reduced to nearly half of that in Malmö.
In the booklet accompanying the theatre program the substantial deletions,
this time in Lars Forssell’s translation, were indicated. Among these are
the two passages dealing with the young man cutting off his own finger
to avoid conscription and the speech by the pastor at his funeral much
later. Like most of the other characters surrounding Peer, the function of
this army wash-out is to throw ideological and psychological light on Peer,
who is his parallel and contrast (Fjelde in Ibsen, 1964: xviiif.). The Memnon
statue, “a monument of Peer’s own petrified self,” and the Lean Man, an
incarnation of the Devil, who suddenly appears as Peer’s co-passenger are
other examples of substantial deletions. About all three characters can be
said that because Ibsen provides so many examples of elements mirroring
Peer’s mentality or fate, it is quite easy to leave out some of them without
disturbing the loose structure of the play, whose unity largely relies on the
all-dominating protagonist and the leitmotif “be thyself.”
As the subtitle of the play indicates, Ibsen’s text is in verse. Moreover,
it is in rhymed verse. Although Ibsen’s Dano-Norwegian is linguistically
close to Swedish, the rhyming offers many difficulties. In his translation,
Forssell therefore settled for a compromise. In order to preserve as much
1 For a survey of Peer Gynt productions, see Marker/Marker, 1989: 9-45.

as possible of the meaning in the source text he usually omits the rhymes;
only in the more lyrical parts they are retained.2
As in 1957 the performance was divided into three parts called “Tales
and Dreams,” “Foreign Lands,” and “The Homecoming.”
From the huge Malmö stage in his first production, B took the play to
the small stage of Dramaten’s Paint Room in his second. The limited acting
space was enlarged through a walkway that extended into the audience,
and by a platform that hovered above the stage and could be moved both
up and down and sideways. A fundamental idea behind the production
was that Peer is an inveterate dreamer and that virtually everything takes
place in his imagination. Unlike Ibsen’s anti-hero who – like his biblical
paragon – wins the world and in the process loses his soul, B’s Peer merely
nourished megalomaniac dreams. His moral failure consisted in his utter
lack of commitment. He was, B said in a radio comment (April 25, 1991), a
mother’s boy and an egoist lacking in concern for others.
In an often quoted stanza, Ibsen says that to write is to sit in judgment
of oneself. Several critics of B’s Peer Gynt had the impression that this
was precisely what the director was doing when turning his protagonist
into an artistic, self-centered, and cowardly figure lacking in love for his
fellow-men. Ibsen’s Peer is “a powerfully built boy of twenty.” B’s Peer was a
middle-aged, corpulent bon-vivant who spent his life dreaming about deeds
that never materialised.
Peer Gynt travels around the world; the floor and the dinner table become
mountains and ships. It begins as a tall tale to make his mother happy.
Fantasy becomes a necessity. When his life’s journey comes to an end Peer
Gynt has moved us around the whole world but the world has all the time
remained in Mother Aase’s kitchen. (B in Löfgren, 1997: 125)
This was strikingly indicated by having the whole action take place in the
house of Peer’s mother Aase; not only the stage but also the sidewalls in the
auditorium revealed that both characters and audience found themselves in
her wooden farmhouse with peasant paintings on the walls.3 Scenographi-
cally a theatrum mundi was created that strengthened the spectators’
2 This compromise is largely in agreement with Ibsen’s own view that in a translation of the
play the meter of the original should be retained as much as possible whereas the rhymes could
be suppressed (Smidt, 2000: 22).
3 B was preceded in this spatial interiorisation by a 1975 production of Brecht’s Mother Cour-
age, in which the whole performance was conceived as taking place in the wagon of Mother
Courage (Innes, 1993: 177).
Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt 131
identification with the protagonist; his environment was theirs. What the
action basically boiled down to, Andréason in Göteborgs-Posten illuminated,
was how “a boy leaves Mother Aase’s embrace in the bed of the farmhouse
and four hours – and a whole life – later returns to the same bed and hides
his face in Solveig’s womb. [...] A circular movement from one maternal
womb to another, and at the same time a movement from morning to even-
ing, from childhood to old age.” In the middle of the room a small table could
be seen and an elegant upholstered chair next to it, to the right a bed and a
grandfather clock, on the floor a red carpet. “Mementos of ‘the good times’
associated with Jon Gynt were still on display in the hut: the spendthrift’s
crest hanging over the lintel, his faded picture above the narrow bed […] and
a smashed pier-glass with a bottle still lodged in it all bespoke the boozer’s
past glory” (Marker/Marker, 1992: 279). The paintings on the wall, it says in
the prompt script, represent “tales that have been told” in this room.
Already in the opening “Aase’s and Peer’s deep love for one another” was
demonstrated; the two “were lying together in the bed, turned to each other
under the cover” (prompt script). Aase, in grey nightshirt, grey slippers and
white hair “à la Sara Lidman” (Ellefsen in Dagens Nyheter), the well-known
committed radical writer, first climbed out of bed and began to prepare
breakfast. Peer significantly remained for a while in bed – Aase complains
that he stays “in bed […] all day” – then got up and sat down at the table in
his white nightshirt. Aase busily moved from stove to table serving her son
who gluttonously devoted himself to his porridge.
Peer’s story about his buck-ride soon attracted Aase’s interest and made
her sit down next to him until she realised that her son had again come
up with a tall tale. When he told her that he had once been beaten up by
Aslak, the smith, she was personally humiliated; mother and son shared
their family pride. When Aase told him that Mads Moen was about to marry
Ingrid of Hægstad, Peer immediately dressed up in starched shirt-breast and
black three-part costume, ready to go to Hægstad. Before he left they played
a Chaplinesque game running around the room with Peer’s bowler hats on
their heads. Before he leaves Ibsen’s Peer puts Aase on “the millhouse roof.”
B’s Peer, limited to Aase’s interior, put her in the larder.
Once in Hægstad, Peer was surrounded by all those invited to celebrate
the wedding of Mads and Ingrid. Retaining the red carpet from Aase’s
farmstead, B had all the guests dressed in what looked more like oriental
than Norwegian folk costumes, all of them in red shades. 4 Peer in his black
4 The scenographer was inspired by dresses he had seen in the countryside in Syria and Jordan
(Bergman/Harning, 2008: 171).
suit was markedly the uninvited outsider – and from another point of view
the ‘dreamer’ of the scene. The dance music consisted solely of rhythmic clog
dancing by the guests on either side of Peer, suggestive of the aggressiveness
experienced by him. At one point they teased him by putting a rope to his
bottom as if he had a tail, the first explicit suggestion of his animal self and
a preparation for what was later to happen to him among the Dovre trolls.
After he had been refused to dance by five girls, Peer saw Solveig arriving
with her parents and her little sister Helga. With Ibsen we get:
peer gynt steps in the newcomers’ path and, pointing to solveig, asks the
man. Can I dance with your daughter?
the man quietly. You may; but first we’ll go in and pay our respects to
the host.
the chief cook to peer, offering him a drink. Since you’re here, you may
have a drink from the jar.
peer gynt looking at the passers-by.
Thanks, I’ll be dancing. I ain’t thirsty.
the chief cook leaves him.
peer gynt looks toward the house and laughs.
How fair! Have you ever seen the like!
With B this became:
solveig’s parents and sister helga in from walkway.

solveig in after them.
peer gynt. Can I dance with your daughter?
solveig’s father. You may.
But first we’ll pay our respects to the host.
solveig’s mother. Come now, Solveig!
They move into the house.
peer gynt alone. She was fair as the light.
Note how B, in this first meeting between Peer and Solveig, focussed on the
two by deleting the Chief Cook and by having Solveig enter separately; how
he inserted a line by the Mother, distinguishing her attitude to her daughter
from that of the Father; and how Forssell’s free translation of Peer’s line
made this meeting even verbally poetical.
Ibsen’s speaker labels are often nameless: “an older man, another, a
third, a fourth.” B provided these characters with typically Norwegian
Christian names: “finn, ole, odd, egil.” A collective label like “others” in
a man half-drunk. You [Peer] wait, and we’ll thrash your coat.
others. Your back gone over! A blue-painted eye!
became individualised into
finn half-drunk. Wait, and we’ll thrash your coat.

ole. And make mince-meat of you.
odd. And beat you black and blue.
egil. And give you a clout.
The brutal threats were coming not from a unified chorus but, more realisti-
cally, from different people.
When Peer learns that the bride, Ingrid, has locked herself in, he seizes
the opportunity and runs away with her to the mountains. Preoccupied
with Solveig he brutally repudiates Ingrid. Banished for having kidnapped
her, he spends his time in the forest where he soon meets the Woman in
Green, the folkloristic Huldre or Lady of the Forest who entices men. She
brings him to her father, the Troll King, where Peer is confronted with the
difference between man and troll, between being true to yourself and being
enough to yourself.5 He agrees to become a troll on condition that, married
to the Woman in Green, he will inherit half the kingdom.
In B’s version the scene among the Dovre trolls was, not surprisingly,
acted out in green light. The wild dancing at Hægstad now had its coun-
terpart in the wild dancing of the trolls. The connection was strengthened
by the fact that the children of the Troll King had the same names as some
of the guests at Hægstad: Ole and Finn, Synnöve, and Hilde. In place of
a crown the Troll King wore a 19th century police helmet and nourished,
caricaturing Peer, the illusion of eternal life; “when I die some time” was
changed to “if I ever die.”
When Ibsen’s Peer declares that he wants to dissolve his marriage to the
Woman in Green, she “gets pain and is carried out by the troll maidens.”
Her pain does not come from Peer’s statement; it is a euphemistic way of
saying that she is in labour.
B showed her, accompanied by throbbing heart beats, giving birth to
the Troll Child, who virtually jumped from her womb onto his father Peer
lying on the floor below, where he, surrounded by darkness, spot-lit sucked
Peer’s blood like a werewolf.
5 In the source text the difference, more subtly, is the verbally slight one between “være sig
selv” and “være sig selv nok.”
The ringing of church bells causes the trolls to flee, leaving Peer alone in
pitch darkness. He is now confronted with the Boyg,6 a mysterious figure
in the list of dramatis personae indicated as “A Voice in the Darkness.” This
is precisely what it was in B’s first production but in his second it received
in addition visual shape and became “ingeniously concrete and elusive at
the same time” (Mario Grut in Aftonbladet). No less than fifteen actors and
actresses circled around Peer in billowing movements – first from left to
right, then from right to left – dressed exactly like him, each of them with a
mirror directed to him.7 As Peer saw himself mirrored by fifteen Peers, so
his “Who are you?” was constantly boomeranged with the answer: “Myself.”
At the end of B’s Part One, Aase dies. Ignoring the danger – he is still
banished – and aware that her end is near, Peer has come to see her. To
console her in her last moments he pretends – as he has presumably learned
from Aase as a child – that the bed is a horse-driven sledge and that they are
driving to Soria Moria Castle, the Arabic name for the Isles of the Blessed.
Sitting “at the end of the bed” with a cord in one hand and a stick in the
other, Peer pretends that he and the horse, Grane,8 are taking his mother
to Heaven. Once he gets God’s assurance that “Mother Aase can come in
free,” he turns around to watch her:
peer gynt. […]

Why do you stare so? Aren’t you well?
Mother, you’re not yourself.
Goes to the head of the bed.
Don’t lie there staring.
Say something. It’s Peer, your son!
Cautiously feels her forehead and hands,
then throws the cord on the chair and says quietly.
Oh! You can rest now, Grane.
We can unharness now.
Closes her eyes and bends over her.
Thanks, mother, for all you’ve forsaken,
for tales, for weal and woe.
But now you may thank me back.
6 The Boyg, i.e. “the bent one,” is a supernatural, destructive creature in Norwegian folklore.
7 B was here inspired by the folkloristic idea that mist close to the ground is a dance of elves.
In the prompt script it says: “Peer meets himself, the magic elf rings.”
8 Grane is the horse in Germanic mythology given by Odin to Sigurd Fafnesbane. Sigurd rides
on Grane through a wall of flames to liberate Brynhild on behalf of Gunnar.
Presses his cheek against her mouth.

There! That was thanks for the ride.
the cottager’s wife. What? Peer! So then it’s ended,
her deepest sorrow and dread.
Oh Lord, how well she sleeps –
or is she –?
peer gynt. Shh. She’s dead.
kari weeps by the corpse; peer gynt for a long time walks around in the
room,
finally he stops by the bed.
peer gynt. Let mother be buried with honor.
I must try to go away.
With Ibsen Peer’s fantasy is his way of helping his mother to face death. In
B’s version it was rather the other way around. “Aase” – I quote from the
prompt script – “feels Peer’s anguish and helps him by provoking him to
tell a story.” 9 In B’s version it was she, not he, who was courageous and
showed loving concern.
B showed Aase half-sitting in bed with a yellow-and-brown knitted
blanket wrapped around her and a grey hood on her head. Peer was sitting
below the end of the bedstead. Both were in frontal position, one behind
the other, so that the audience could see both their faces. Unlike Aase,
they could see Peer’s tense face as he was telling his tale. Aase dies, it says
in the prompt script, when Peer utters the line “Here come Peer Gynt and
his mother!” by the gate of Heaven; at this point Aase does not know if she
will be let in or not. In the performance she showed the sign of dying after
Saint Peter in Peer’s fairy-tale had refused to let her in. This was for Aase
the moment of ultimate despair, the moment when, all hope gone, she gave
up the ghost. What followed was:
peer gynt. […] turns around and looks at aase.

Why do you stare so? Aren’t you well?
Angrily. Don’t lie there staring.
Oh! Takes off the red bedspread he has earlier put around his head
and lies down on his back.
You can rest now, Grane.
9 B here retained the same idea he had in his first production. Peer, he then claimed, “cannot
watch Aase die – he dares not do so – and therefore she summons the last of her strength to help
him. It isn’t he who comforts her, quite the other way round” (Billquist, 1960: 232).
Now we can unharness. Up to the bed.

Stands by the bed. Thanks, mother, for all you’ve forsaken,
for tales, for weal and woe.
But now you may thank me back.
Presses his cheek against her mouth,
and puts his hand on her forehead.
There! That was thanks for the ride.
Puts his hand to his heart.
kari enters. What? Peer! – So then it is ended,
her deepest sorrow and dread.
peer gynt shakes hands with kari and bows to her.
kari looks at aase. Oh Lord, how well she sleeps –
Looks at peer gynt. Or is she –? Looks again at aase, nods affirmingly,
moves away from the bed, clasps her hands, curtsies to the dead woman,
spreads the red bedspread over her.
peer gynt. Let her be buried with honor.
For now I’ll leave.
Even when telling his ‘good-night’ tale, B’s Peer remained concerned with
himself. “Caught by his own story, the artist flees to the world of fairy-
tales, while the clock ticks away and the mother dies, forgotten by the
son,” Ellefsen wrote in Dagens Nyheter, indicating by “artist” the mental
affinity between Peer and B. This Peer was primarily suppressing his own
fear of death. Only after a while did he approach the dead woman and this
in a rather formal way, presumably in an attempt to restrain his feelings.
Peer’s contrast was Kari who unsentimentally accepted what had happened,
showed reverence for the recently dead and displayed power of action.
In Part Two, “Foreign Lands,” Peer first finds himself in Morocco. He has
become wealthy by trading with slaves and religion (bibles). Surrounded by
four gentlemen – a German, a Frenchman, an Englishman, and a Swede – he
declares that in the war between Greece and Turkey he will not, like them,
support Greece but Turkey, the stronger power. He is in other words willing
to trade western values for less risky and more profitable eastern ones. It
is business as usual.
In the desert he sees an ostrich. B had an actor dressed up as an ostrich at
this moment run across the stage. According to common (but false) belief,
ostriches bury their heads in the sand to avoid danger. This is comparable
to Peer’s tendency always to “go roundabout,” to avoid facing what opposes
him head on. Dressed as a bedouin, Peer is hailed as a prophet by the sensual
Anitra, another mirror figure, who trades her soul – if she has one – for
Peer’s jewels. In Egypt he visits the singing Memnon statue and the Great
Sphinx of Giza, a mythical creature with a lion‘s body and a human head,
like Peer, part man, part animal. B combined the two by showing Peer in
front of the huge red shadow of the Sphinx.
With the assistance of Professor Begriffenfeldt Peer finally arrives in
the lunatic asylum in Cairo. “So here we are,” he asks, “in the Scholar’s
Club?” And Begriffenfeldt confirms that this is where “the threescore and
ten Interpreters” are found, “now raised by a hundred and sixty more.”
The first number refers to the authors of the Greek version of the New
Testament; for the second number no satisfactory explanation has been
given. B changed the first number to eighteen, the number of members of
the Swedish Academy, best known for awarding the annual literary Nobel
Prize, and absurdly had the insane Begriffenfeldt claim that this number
had recently been increased to fifteen; this referred to the fact that three of
the members of this Academy abstained from taking part in its meetings in
protest against the Academy’s refusal to oppose the death penalty against
Salman Rushdie. This was B’s way of finding an updated counterpart of the
Swedish cowardliness satirised by Ibsen.
In the asylum Peer is greeted as the emperor of the madmen. B showed
him in a red dressing-gown, now seen as an imperial gown, setting him off
from his all-white surroundings – as the dreamer is set off from his dream.
In the asylum, Ibsen has Peer witness different types of madmen. Huhu is
an advocate of national language reform, a very Norwegian situation that
B could easily skip. The Fellah, on the other hand, here called the Mummy-
carrier Apis, was retained since his very visible adoration of the glorious
past applied very much to B’s audience.10 When the Mummy-carrier, at
Peer’s suggestion, not only “prepares to hang himself ” (Ibsen) but with B
really hanged himself, Peer’s surprise at someone actually doing what he
had been thinking of doing, the Gyntian gap between thought and deed
was put into relief.
Hussein, finally, is Ibsen’s satire on the Swedish Foreign Minister who
thought he could deter Prussian aggression against Denmark with a flurry
of diplomatic notes. Although this allusion was unintelligible to most of B’s
audience, the figure of Hussein, now re-baptised The Pencil, was retained
since his attitude was not at all time-bound.11 Pencil and paper belong
together. Peer reveals that he is “a paper no one had written on,” a tabula
10 The Fellah is a satire on the Swedish cult of Charles XII (the Mummy).
11 He has, for example, been compared to Neville Chamberlain. One may also think of the
Swedish attitude to Nazi-Germany during WW II.
rasa. Similarly, the Pencil confesses that he has never “been sharpened” and
that he now longs for a knife. Moreover, the Pencil needs someone to hold
him or he cannot write. An unwritten paper is like someone who has never
taken responsibility for his own life, as is a pencil that is not sharpened or
is without a hand to govern it.
B showed Peer and the Pencil close together. The scene culminated as
follows:
peer gynt with rising anguish. Hold him!

the pencil puts his hand on peer gynt’s shoulder.
Precisely. Hold me. Put the papers on the table. Kneeling.
Screams. Don’t forget the postscript. Worn-out pencil. Lived and died…
someone…held me in his hand…
peer gynt bends back, screams, runs upstage.
No…a sinner…whatever…something burst…
Screams. I can’t remember my name…help me, guardian of all madmen!
Kneels.
begriffenfeldt. Look how he kneels in the dust! He is desperate! Let
him be crowned! Puts a wreath of straw on peer gynt’s head.
Hail him, hail the Emperor of Self! Raises peer gynt’s arms to cross-form.
Triumphant shouting of the madmen turns into air-raid siren and bluish
lightning.
In Act V, B’s “The Homecoming,” Peer is “on board a ship in the North Sea,
off the Norwegian coast.” A storm is coming up. B opened the scene with
ominous darkness and rumble. Slowly the lights came up and Peer and
the Captain could be discerned. After a while the rumble ceased. In the
stillness a co-passenger, never seen by Peer before, suddenly appeared next
to him. The Strange Passenger, lit by a spot, looked like a corpse-carrier in
his black coat, white muffler and black top hat; his face was very pale. The
figure has been interpreted in different ways. Evert Sprinchorn sees him as
an incarnation of the Devil.12 In B’s rendering and considering that Peer’s
12 There is in the description of the Strange Passenger, Sprinchorn claims – here quoted from
Aarseth 1975: 152 – “a devil’s dossier as complete as one could ever find it. The Fiend wanders
at night, raises tempests, uses the essential organs of the body in the preparation of the elixirs,
has necrophagous inclinations, a cloven hoof in place of a right foot and claws in place of hands,
inhabits the underworld, and frequently transforms himself into a dog […] From the satanist’s
point of view the Devil is of course the light-bringer Lucifer.”
life may shortly be at stake, it was more natural to see him as a messenger
or even an incarnation of Death.13
After the ship has capsized, Peer manages to survive by clinging to the
keel. The Strange Passenger again appears next to him. When he asked if
Peer had ever felt “the hard grip around the throat,” B had him seize Peer’s
throat with his black-gloved hand. And when Peer asked him to let go, he
answered meta-theatrically: “You don’t die in the middle of the fifth act.”
B retained Ibsen’s joke and expanded it by changing Peer’s “Satan’s tricks!”
into “Damn theatre!” Uncomfortable reality was with greater emphasis
turned into a spectacle, into something unreal.
Back in Norway, Peer visits his old farmstead, now for sale. In the
nightmarish auction scene the men were dressed as women and some of
the women as men – a variation it seemed of the troll versus man theme –
Peer beat with a drumstick, as if he was the auctioneer. The scenographer,
Lennart Mörk, had created a background which showed a rubbish heap of
cast-off belongings, including an arm hanging limp from the bed, as if the
dead Aase was lying there. Actually she stood like a ghost by the bed and
reproached her son: “A fine driver you were, Peer! The sleigh has turned
over.”
After the famous onion scene has revealed that Peer lacks a kernel, a true
self, he is confronted with the Button-molder who maintains that Peer – like
Everyman – has been no great sinner and therefore must be melted down
with other faulty goods – unless he can prove that he has been “himself.”
B’s Button-molder was a tall man in a long coat and with an old-fashioned
police helmet on his head, linking him with the Troll King. Like a civil
servant he showed Peer the paper on which he was listed as someone to be
fetched. Polishing his casting ladle he seemed to prepare it for the melting
of Peer. But Peer is given respite. This may give him the opportunity to find
a witness who can certify that he has indeed been himself.
Unfortunately the Old Man he comes across proves to be the Troll King,
now in a run-down state. B had him crawl up from under the auction de-
bris like a beggar, a simple helmet on his head indicating his decline. Peer
embraced his father-in-law and tried to bribe him with a bottle of liquor. In
vain. The Troll King could only prove that Peer had not been himself, that
he had always been enough to himself, like a troll.
13 His sudden appearance recalls Death’s sudden appearance to the Knight in The Seventh
Seal. Ibsen’s Strange Passenger may well have been an inspiration to B, whose film premiered
in the same year as his first stage performance of Peer Gynt.
At long last Peer returns to the ever-waiting Solveig, now blind as love is
blind. With B she was white-haired and visibly blind.14 She was, as before,
in her red dress. Wrapped around her, to indicate her maternal nature,
was Aase’s brown-and-yellow blanket. Lovingly she touched the prodigal
‘son’ she no longer could see. To Peer’s burning question “where” – in hope,
he does not say “if” – he had been his true self, she answers with 1 Kor.
13: 13: “In my faith, in my hope, and in my love.” B cut the following lines,
including Peer’s over-explicit “You are mother and I your dreamed son” and
“My mother, my wife, innocent woman.” But he retained Peer’s behaviour:
“hides his face in her lap” and even amplified it by having him hide in the
very bed where, in the opening, he had slept next to Aase. Mother and wife
had become one.
solveig half-sitting frontally in bed, softly.

Sleep, my dearest boy,
I shall rock you, I shall watch over you.
The boy has rested at his mother’s breast

his whole life’s day. God bless you, my love!
Three hard knocks on the door.
The boy has lain so close to my heart

His whole life’s day. Now he’s tired out.
Sleep, my dearest boy,

I shall rock you, I shall watch over you.
Rocking him to sleep, Solveig did for Peer what he had not been able to do
for his mother.
The door is kicked open by the button-molder, the casting ladle in his
hand. Bluish sidelight turns him into a near-silhouette outlined against
the black darkness behind him.
We’ll meet at the final crossroads

and then we’ll see – I will come back.
14 This is a blindness, B explained, that “sees with inner eyes. And then I imagined that she
had cried so much that she had turned blind” (Sjögren, 2002: 240).
“The clock, which stood midway between the bed and the retributive figure
in the doorway, had stopped ticking; its hands again indicated seven, the
exact moment at which the performance had begun.”15
B’s second Peer Gynt experienced no less than 130 performances. Because
of its success it was moved from the Paint Room to the Big Stage the fol-
lowing season. The critics were overwhelmingly very positive. But some
found the antics a bit too prominent and wondered whether B’s clownish
Peer possessed the potential for the existential tragedy in the last part of
the ‘trilogy.’ Andréason in Göteborgs-Posten pointed to a possible problem
reaching far beyond this production when he remarked that some of B’s
“visual fantasies seem so complete from the start that it seems as if the
actors were there mostly to fill in something already designed.” Guest
performances were given in Seville, Düsseldorf, and Bergen.
15 This was how the performance ended according to Marker/Marker, 1992: 289. In the
recording made a few days before the premiere, the performance ends with the clock striking
seven. Most likely B changed his mind and found it more meaningful to have the clock stop
ticking – signalling Peer’s death – while retaining the visual link between opening (‘birth’) and
ending (death).
10. William Shakespeare, The Winter’s
Tale
Already at the age of fourteen, B planned “two super-productions” for his

puppet theatre: Mozart’s and Schikaneder’s opera The Magic Flute and
Shakespeare’s fairy-tale drama The Winter’s Tale; both projects collapsed
(B, 1994a: 3).1 The former was realised in 1975, when B’s pioneering screen
version of the opera was broadcast by Swedish Television; the latter did not
materialise until 1994, when his equally pioneering version of the play was
performed at the Big Stage of Dramaten.
The rehearsal period was for B extremely emotional:
It never happens that I become emotional when I am professionally-

creatively involved. In the case of The Winter’s Tale this principle didn’t
hold. Already when we were blocking […] I was violently seized by
emotional tumult (B, 1994a: 38).
The reason is obvious. B’s wife Ingrid, to whom he was extremely attached,
was seriously ill; she died a little more than a year later. It is likely that
the decision to direct The Winter’s Tale with its resurrection of the dead
Hermione at the end had to do with Ingrid’s illness. After her death B both
directly and indirectly, notably in his TV film Saraband, voiced the hope
that he would reunite with her in after-life.
Commenting on the theme of The Magic Flute, B had said:
“Does Pamina still live?” The music translates the little question of the
text into a big and eternal question: Does Love live? Is Love real? The
answer comes quivering and hopeful: “Pa-mi-na still lives!” Love exists.
Love is real in the world of man. (Mozart/Schikaneder, 1975: 34).
A closely related theme is found in The Winter’s Tale, where Leontes in the
latter part of the play searches for Hermione as Tamino searches for Pamina.
Reminiscing about the situation when he was planning to do the play in
his puppet theatre, B once remarked that “The Winter’s Tale is about the
1 Although the interview, ascribed to Anna Salander, is presumably a fake and the interviewer
none other than the director himself, the references to B’s childhood should be heeded.
death of Love, the survival of Love and the resurrection of Love. It was the
resurrection that broke me” (B, 1994a: 38).
Not only the theme of The Magic Flute but also the handling of it has
a close affinity with that of The Winter’s Tale. In the opera, B says in the
program attached to the LP recording of it:
It is the wonderful suddenness of the fairy tale and the dream that we may
experience.... The sweetness of the dream but also the pain and longing of
the dream.... the people in the play ask themselves if they are dreaming
or are awake – if this is a dream or reality.... “If it is not fiction, then it is a
dream,” as Strindberg says in A Dream Play. (Mozart/Schikaneder, 1975: 21f.)
B had asked Britt G. Hallqvist and Claes Schaar to provide a new Swedish
translation of The Winter’s Tale. Again he demanded that the text be actable,
sayable, and understandable. A comparison with the old Swedish renderings of
the play reveals that the new translation radically differs from them precisely
in this respect. Naturally, this has often resulted in a certain simplification of
the meaning and a diminishing of the poetical qualities (the blank verse). But
these losses must be weighed against the increased accessibility of the text.
Shakespeare’s text – the translators used the Arden edition – is divided
into five acts. We move from King Leontes’ Sicily (Acts I-III.2) to King
Polixenes’ Bohemia (Acts III.3-IV.4), and from there – with a time lapse
of no less than sixteen years – back to Sicily (Act V). Disregarding the act
division, B divided the play into 11 scenes:
Sicily, winter.
1. The park of King Leontes’ palace.
2. Queen Hermione’s salon.
3. Outside Hermione’s prison.
4. The park of the palace.
5. The court room.
Bohemia, spring.
6. Wild coast.
Intermission
Bohemia, spring, summer.

7. Pastoral landscape. Spring.
8. Pastoral landscape. Midsummer.
William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale 145
Sicily, summer.
9. Cloister.
10. The park of the palace.
11. Art gallery in Paulina’s house.
Actually Scenes 7 and 8 were Bohemian only in a figurative sense; if any-

thing, the pastoral environment of these scenes was located in the heartland
of Sweden, the province of Dalarna.
Approximately half of Shakespeare’s text was omitted. Leaving out a
couple of courtiers, B on the other hand added two women to the cast:
Amalia, lady in waiting to Queen Hermione, and the Abbess at the cloister.
The latter took over one of Cleomenes’ speeches, while Cleomenes took over
some of Camillo’s and the third Courtier’s speeches.
More than is usually the case, the performance began, as it were, with the
theatre program, where B pretended to be the translator of a letter, written in
1925 by a German professor, who was returning a nineteenth-century theatre
poster to the Royal Library of Stockholm. The poster, reproduced in the
program, announced that The Winter’s Tale, directed by Mr Richard Furumo,
would be performed as part of Miss Ulrika Sofia’s birthday celebration, on
December 28, in the grand salon of Hugo Löwenstierna’s hunting castle.
By this counterfeit on B’s part, the audience, many of whom would be
familiar with the work of Carl Jonas Love Almqvist – one of the leading
Romantic writers in Sweden – was forewarned that the play they were going
to witness would be placed within an early nineteenth-century frame. In
one of his works, Jaktslottet (The Hunting Castle), quoted in the program,
Almqvist has Frans Löwenstierna explain to his brother Henrik that their
father Hugo has invented “a kind of plays which he wants to call Songes
(Dreams) to be performed during autumn and winter evenings.
The theatre – the yellow salon, the length of which is suitable for this
purpose – is arranged so that a curtain of white gauze is hung in the
middle of the room, dividing it into two parts.... This curtain will never
be raised. We spectators are sitting on one side of the gauze. On the other
side, furthest back the dream takes place. (Shakespeare, 1994: 11f.)
Unlike Hugo Löwenstierna, B chose not to separate the audience from

the performance but, on the contrary, to integrate them as much as pos-
sible. Setting the play in Löwenstierna’s salon, B created a complex Droste
effect. The Stockholm audience were introduced to an early nineteenth-
century evening of entertainment, the main part of which consisted in the
presentation of The Winter’s Tale, witnessed also by the nineteenth-century

members of the Löwenstierna family and their guests. As amateurs some of
them incarnated Shakespearean characters living in an unspecified period.
At the same time, scenery, properties, and many of the costumes signalled
early twentieth century, the time when Dramaten was built. Approaching
Strindberg’s concept in A Dream Play, where “time and space do not exist,”
B in his version of The Winter’s Tale created a dreamlike “synthetic theatre
time” (Zern in Dagens Nyheter).
As designed by scene designer Lennart Mörk, Löwenstierna’s horseshoe-
shaped salon, imitating the form of the auditorium, was a replica of the
beautiful art noveau foyer of Dramaten. As a result, the audience found
itself in a space between two areas mirroring one another, one meant for
performance, the other for relaxation between the acts. The scenery in this
way contributed to wipe out the borderline between stage and auditorium;
at the same time it created an unreal, dreamlike effect.
To strengthen the feeling of communion between the people on either
side of the proscenium, the Löwenstierna family and their guests appeared
happily chatting in the staged salon, while the real audience were arriving
to take their seats. The actor representing Almqvist sat down at one of the
two square pianos. A conjurer entertained with a trick. A female choir
sang one of Almqvist’s Songes. There was music and dancing. After a while
some of the party participants – the host, Hugo Löwenstierna, being one
of them – walked down the steps installed at the front of the stage and sat
down in the first row, thereby turning themselves into members of the real
audience. After some ten minutes two children – a boy and a girl – with bells
in their hands announced that the performance was to begin.2 Suddenly
a boy with a comic mask and a girl with a tragic one slowly dragged a blue
sofa from the back of the stage to the front. Almqvist’s and the audience’s
world, Zern (1996: 55) points out, changed to Shakespeare’s “through a piece
of blocking similar to a camera tracking.” A film director was here at work.
Hugo Löwenstierna changed his tails for Leontes’ long blue robe and Richard
Furumo, Löwenstiernas guest, for Polixenes’ long green dress.
The scenery in The Winter’s Tale, now to be performed, had an Elizabethan
simplicity: a beautiful art nouveau sofa, a big dinner table, a few painted
screens, a wind machine visibly cranked, writhing veiled women represent-
ing a stormy sea on which a tiny model of a sailing ship was being tossed.
2 The sudden highlighting of the two children surrounded by festive family members which
recalled the beginning of Fanny and Alexander prepared for Mamillius’ central role in the
performance.
As with Shakespeare, the first part of B’s play was set in winter. But while
Shakespeare’s pastoral scenes play in late summer or even early autumn,
B here settled for spring and summer. The reason is obvious. Having relo-
cated these scenes from Bohemia to Dalarna, midsummer being the most
carnivalesque time of the year in Sweden, would have a particularly strong
emotional impact on the audience. Shakespeare’s sheep-shearing feast gave
way to midsummer celebration.
Shakespeare’s seasonal development reflects the inner change that the
protagonist, Leontes, undergoes in the course of the play, which essentially
deals with the death, survival, and resurrection of his love for his wife
Hermione. This connection was strengthened in B’s version, where in the
production script we move from “Winter afternoon” (Scene 2) to “Sharp
winter” (Scene 3) to “Cold winter day with snow falling” (Scene 4).
In the performance, the lighting, similarly, accompanied Leontes’ inner
development. When his jealousy was kindled, the windows were lit deep-
red. Later, when his love for Hermione had died, or rather lay dormant, a
cold winter night with a starry sky and a frosty moon above snow-clad trees
could be glimpsed outside the windows.3
Scenery and costumes in the 19th century frame action were kept in the
Swedish national colours – in conformance with the blue of Dramaten’s
curtain and chairs and the yellow of its proscenium and balconies. In the
play-within-the-play, blue and black characterised Leontes and his men
in the early part; as a penitentiary he later changed to white. Hermione,
Perdita, and Florizel were in red, the colour of blood, life, and love.
While Shakespeare’s play seems set in a pre-Christian period, B made use
of a marked Christian frame of reference, especially in the Almqvist songs
with which the action was interspersed. (In either case the text contained a
number of anachronisms.) It is no coincidence that B’s play-within-the-play
was supposed to be performed on the day that the Catholic church used to
celebrate as the Holy Innocents’ Day, commemorating Herod’s killing of the
infants of Bethlehem (Mat. 2: 6); hereby it was suggested that Leontes was
another Herod, while Mamillius and Perdita corresponded to the victimised
Bethlehem children. The Christmas tree in the wintry part was carried over
in the cruciform maypole in the midsummer part; this again was developed
into the cruciform of the Holy Virgin in Scene 9.
The suddenness of Leontes’ unjustif ied jealousy is a classical and
crucial problem confronting every director of The Winter’s Tale (Pafford
in Shakespeare, 1993a: lviff.). Shakespeare has Polixenes visit Leontes for
3 Ingamaj Beck in Dramat, 3, 1994: 30.

nine months to make it possible that he could be the father of Hermione‘s

child. In performances, her state of pregnancy is usually indicated from the
beginning. B let it initially be invisible.
Modern directors, Stephen Orgel (in Shakespeare, 1996: 22) points out,
sometimes make Hermione and Polixenes behave strikingly intimate to-
ward each other to justify Leontes’ jealousy. B was one of them. When the
play-within-the play opened, Hermione was sitting on the blue art nouveau
sofa between her husband Leontes and their guest Polixenes, Leontes’ child-
hood friend. She was in red, Leontes in blue, Polixenes in green. Hermione
was so friendly with both men that it was difficult to tell whether this was
a ‘matrimonial’ sofa or a sofa meant for a ménage à trois. 4 Confirming his
intention to return to his own Bohemia the following day, Polixenes had
been provided with a red guest book, a very Swedish custom, in which he
had just finished writing. The book was handed over to Hermione. After
a while, Leontes snapped the book from her, looked into it, and abruptly
closed it. Hermione, declaring her love for her husband, put her arms around
Leontes’ neck, while imploring Polixenes to stay with them for some time.
Leontes opened the book again and continued to read, then suddenly got
up, threw the book on the sofa and left. Here was suggested, it seemed, that
Polixenes had praised Hermione in writing to such an extent that Leontes’
jealousy, aroused already by her intimacy with his friend, was kindled.
Leontes returned and hid himself behind the sofa, spying on Hermione
and Polixenes. What he heard served to increase his suspicions:
hermione....We freely admit

the sins we [women] have seduced you [men] to,
if you first sinned with us, and then
remained with us and never slipped.5
leontes up behind the sofa with a “Boo!”
hermione and polixenes, who have been sitting close together, surprised
fall away from one another.
4 In A Doll’s House, Nora finds herself emotionally torn between her husband and the couple’s
old friend Rank. It is tempting to see a spill-over from B’s production of this play to his Winter’s
Tale, especially since both women were played by the same actress.
5 Cf., with regard to accessibility, the original, where the corresponding passage reads:
Th’offences we have made you do, we’ll answer,
If you first sinn’d with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipp’d not
With any but with us. (Act I.2)
Hearing that Polixenes had complied with Hermione’s prayer that he re-
main in Sicily for a while, Leontes now placed himself on the sofa between
Hermione and Polixenes, turning his back on the latter, who looked away
to the right. When Hermione put her red shawl around Leontes’ neck it was
on her part a lovingly playful gesture which, however, was experienced by
him as though he was being ensnared. With her shawl around his neck,
Leontes, alone on the front stage, suffocatingly spoke his
Too hot! Too hot! To go too far in friendship,

that is the same as mingling blood.
This soliloquy is usually regarded as the first indication in the text of Leontes’
jealousy; in B’s version it was, as we have seen, preceded by several motivat-
ing pointers. Shortly after his jealous outburst, Leontes characteristically
put the red shawl next to the red book and sat down on both of them.
Highly pregnant with meaning was the situation when Polixenes and
Hermione were seen lovingly dancing in the background while Leontes
told Camillo:
You think I am so muddy, so unsettled

that I myself have caused my suffering....
At this moment, it was suggestively unclear, Christina Lundberg in

Sundsvalls Tidning noted, whether the dancing in the background was an
objective event or a subjective projection of Leontes’ jealousy. When Leontes
a little later, Lahr (1994: 106) observed,
glimpses Hermione and Polixenes circled in [the] dance... a rush of stab-

bing anguish overcomes him; Leontes breaks into the circle, casting
Polixenes out and embracing Hermione. He holds her at arm’s length
while she nestles his hand gently against her cheek. Suddenly, Leontes
whispers something obscene to her, and Hermione breaks away. Leontes
grabs a nearby female member of the court and begins to rape her.
Beyond the need to revenge himself by humiliating his wife even more than
she had – as he believed – humiliated him, this sudden outburst of passion and
violence seemed to visualise less “the middle-aged king’s unconscious terror
of impotence” (ibid.) than, in B’s fairy-tale-like terms, “the death of Love.”
Much of what took place between the three main parties within B’s
central magic rectangle had its proxemic and kinetic counterpart in the area
outside it. Using one of Anna Pavlova’s so-called social dances, suited for
the balls of the bourgeoisie, as well as various elements from Antony Tudor,
choreographer Donya Feuer had the dancers move – and at strategic mo-
ments freeze their movements – like blue-grey shadows in patterns hinting
at the subliminal drama that was being enacted at centre forestage. At the
same time, the dancing couples helped to expand – universalise – the man-
woman relations demonstrated by the three chief characters – especially
when these left their central, well-lit, space and joined the dancers in the
outer, dimmed area.
Characteristic of his concerns in later years was B’s preoccupation with
children in his productions. The expansion of Prince Mamillius’ part is a case
in point. Early in Scene 1, the boy was seen playing with his puppet theatre,
identical with little Alexander’s in Fanny and Alexander, both representing
the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen with its motto “Not Only for Pleasure”
inscribed above the proscenium opening. The scenery in Mamillius’ puppet
theatre was that of the salon surrounding it. Moreover, this little theatre,
figuring inside a theatre (Dramaten), had another puppet theatre on its
stage, this again a puppet theatre on its stage (Lennart Mörk in Rosenqvist,
1994: 26). Linking the play with the film, Mamillius with Alexander, B by
this second Droste effect brought together the boy playing with his theatre
and the grown-ups – both on the stage and in the auditorium – busying
themselves with theirs.
With Shakespeare, Prince Mamillius is sickened to death either because
he cannot stand his father’s harsh treatment of his mother or because, like
Hamlet, he cannot bear “the supposed sin of his mother and consequent
taint upon himself” (Pafford in Shakespeare, 1993a: lxxxii). Mamillius’
sad fate is included in the play mainly to demonstrate the far-reaching
consequences of Leontes’ jealousy. With B he was a boy of ten played by a
girl, that is, an ‘androgynous’ and therefore representative child. His hair
was reddish like that of Leontes’ – sufficient proof, it would seem, that
Leontes was indeed his father. Yet like Strindberg’s Captain in The Father
– several critics noted the resemblance – Leontes had doubts about his
parenthood. Mamillius’ loyalty to both parents was indicated both in his
costume and in his attitude to them. Like Leontes he wore a blue dress in
Scene 1; like Hermione he was dressed in red in Scene 2. Intuitively sensing
that something was awry in their marriage, he was seen early in the play
moving away from his puppet theatre to the sofa where he eavesdropped
on his parents’ conversation with Polixenes. A little later, he was happily
sitting on his father’s lap – until Leontes brutally pushed him away. In Scene
2, similarly, he was comfortably resting with his mother – until Leontes tore
him away from her. Shortly after this, he was again seen eavesdropping
when Leontes called his wife a whore. In Scene 3, he was seen outside his
mother’s prison, suffering with her.
In his description of the dilemma in which a child of disagreeing parents
finds itself – a situation vividly experienced by little Ingmar6 – B gradually
added visual information that would motivate what in his version might
be seen as a ‘suicide’ on Mamillius’ part, this child-Hamlet who, as Olle
Grönstedt in NU put it, was hit by “too great a sorrow too early.”
In the middle of the play (Act III.2) Hermione is condemned to imprison-
ment although the Oracle in Delphi has declared her innocent. In B’s court
room, lit by bluish light, Leontes, dressed in black, was standing on the huge
judicial table, acting the part of self-imposed public prosecutor. Behind
him the Judge, in red, was sitting. On either side of him court officers in
black were seen. Behind the Judge a crowd of soldiers and members of the
community were seen, dressed in common grey. After Leontes had accused
his wife of infidelity and high treason, Hermione climbed the table. In her
speech of defence she declared:
You know,
although you would not admit it, that I
have always been as faithful as I am now sad.
Stands up. To Leontes. Look at me!
To the members of the community. Look at me!
To the audience in the auditorium. Look at me!
The original’s single “behold me” was thus rendered, less solemnly, three
times. The echo of Pilate’s “Behold the man!” (John 19: 5) seemed obvious;
Hermione was as innocent as Jesus.
Shortly after Hermione has heard that her son Mamillius has died,
she dies herself. To save her baby from Leontes’ wrath, Paulina’s husband
Antigonus brings the baby to Bohemia. Upon arriving there he has a dream
in which he sees Hermione. As soon as Antigonus in his soliloquy relates
that in a dream he has seen “the mother of the child” he has saved, B had
Hermione appear behind him, in a “blood-red dress” and with chains around
her hands, the way she had appeared in the court scene. She told Antigonus
6 Compare, for example, little Ingmar and Mamillius witnessing a row between their parents;
B’s father’s and Leontes’ momentary inclination to kill themselves; the dead mother as seemingly
alive and the ‘resurrection’ of Hermione (B, 1989: 7, 17).
that Leontes believed that the baby was lost forever. “Therefore give her the
name Perdita!”
With Shakespeare, Leontes’ repentance – after sixteen years – is dem-
onstrated in V.1, usually set in his palace. No doubt recalling the Stranger’s
penance in the asylum scene of Strindberg’s To Damascus, staged by him
twenty years earlier, B instead set the scene in a cloister, showing Leontes,
crushed, surrounded by virginal nuns, representatives of that which he had
violated. Leontes was seen with his back, streaked with blood, turned to the
audience, prostrate in front of a life-like image of the Bleeding Madonna,
a sword plunged into her heart, to Leontes an image of the wife he felt he
had killed.
When Paulina in the Swedish text reproaches him for what he has done,
Leontes submissively answers:
It is true. Killed! I have killed her,

yes, but how you hurt me with those words!
If they are bitter in your mouth, then they are
much more bitter in my thoughts.
Please say them seldom!
Showing Leontes as a flagellant, B replaced the escapist “seldom” with the

masochist “often.”
While the penance scene fittingly was set in a cloister, the resurrection
scene was staged in a secular environment: Paulina’s art gallery, at night.
Statues in white togas and with masks on their faces and lit lanterns in their
hands entered the stage, anticipating what was about to happen. Hermione,
a statuesque figure,7 was carried in on a catafalque, which was placed in the
middle of the room.
paulina.... Music, awake her!

(Almqvist’s Songe No. XV is hummed in the distance.)
The time has come. Be stone no more! (hermione moves.)
Look, she moves! (Silence. hermione raises herself to sitting position.)
Be not afraid! What she is doing is as holy
as my conjuring is good.
7 Cf. Kermode 2000: 274: “the stone is supposed to be cold, yet it stands for the Queen’s warm
life. It comes to Leontes that it is he who is as cold as the stone.”
As in The Magic Flute, music worked the magic at the hands of someone
steadfast in love.
Providing the scene with a richness of overtones, B was not suggesting
that Paulina, who knew that Hermione had merely been hidden away for
sixteen years, was performing a trick – as did the conjurer appearing in the
pre-play sequence. Rather, he was suggesting that the long survival of love,
expressed through wordless art and music, could miraculously lead to its
resurrection. The Songe that was hummed in the distance was the one that
was sung in the beginning, bridging the pre-play and the play proper. This
Songe, called “The Flower of the Heart,” relates a parable in simple words.
God has planted a colourless rose in the heart of man; its thorns wound the
heart. When the heart asks God why He has done so, God answers: “The
blood from your heart colours your rose for you. / You and the rose of your
heart then resemble Me in beauty.” Suffering in imitatio Christi is the way
to salvation. This meaning tied in with Leontes’ sixteen years of penance,
emblematised in his flagellated back, red with blood. Suddenly the red
colour of Hermione’s and Mamillius’ costumes in the beginning of the play
gained a deeper meaning.
For the noble Paulina, Shakespeare’s play ends happily. Having lost her
husband, she marries Camillo. This solution was not open to B, since he had
gradually turned Camillo into a Catholic priest. Instead, he chose an ending
where the attention was strongly focussed upon the reunion of Leontes,
Hermione, and Perdita – husband, wife, and daughter:
hermione slowly, gropingly.

Tell me, my child,
how were you saved, and where have you been?
How did you find the way to your father’s house?
perdita puts her head in hermione’s lap.
paulina up to the trio, puts one hand on leontes’ shoulder, the other on
perdita’s.
Tell about that, you may do later.
You fortunate people, go now and share
your triumph with one and all! Moves to the right.
I, old turtle, will fly away
to some withered bough, where I will lament
my husband, whom I have lost, until the end of life.
leontes shaking his head.
No! No! No! Dear Paulina, Up to her, embraces her, takes her left hand and
touches her behind
hermione and Perdita.

accompany us now to some place where we
in peace and quiet, with questions and with answers,
may learn of what has happened to us all
in this long period that we’ve been separated.
Come, Reaches his hand out to hermione who rises. perdita takes her
right hand. hermione lets leontes’ hand loose and takes both perdita’s
hands, then takes leontes’ hand again. come with us. They turn away
from the audience and are about to leave upstage when the
housemaid enters from right. Excuse me, Your Excellency, but the supper
is served since quite some time.
löwenstierna, who has been sitting in the middle of the front row, witness-
ing the performance, enters the stage. Happy mealtime music. Most of
the people, who have taken part in the performance whirl around on the
stage, now out of their roles. A white-dressed girl jokingly sits down on the
catafalque, where hermione has just been raised from the dead. Exeunt
all except the singer. Starlit night, strong moonlight through the windows.
singer sitting downstage right, sings a capella Almqvist’s Songe No. 1.
O my Lord, how beautiful
to hear music from a holy angel’s mouth.
O my Lord, how lovely,
to die in music and in song.
Quietly flow, o my soul, in the river,

the dark and heavenly purple river.
time, a white-haired lady in a black crinoline with a red train enters the
stage from the auditorium with a big alarm clock.
Quietly sink, o my blessed spirit,
into the arms of God, comforting and good.
time puts down the ticking alarm clock on the forestage. It shows five to
twelve.
O my Lord, how beautiful

to hear music from a holy angel’s mouth.
O my Lord, how lovely,
to die in music and in song.
time leaves upstage. Black-out. The ticking of the clock grows louder.
By having Time appear in Act IV.1 and reappear at the end of the perfor-
mance as an elderly woman wearing both the colour of life and of death, and
by providing her with an alarm clock8 instead of an hour glass, B ended his
Winter’s Tale with a sound that, like the allegorical figure herself, bridged
stage and auditorium and fused the two areas into a theatrum mundi, in
recognition of the fact that we are all ruled by the Clock of Life and that
the silence of darkness awaits us all.
The critical reception was overwhelming and the presentation of Shake-
speare’s fairy-tale drama within a 19th century Swedish framework was
generally praised. B regarded it himself as his most important production
and the one “closest to his heart” (Sjögren, 2002: 184). Because the stage
design was closely linked to the Dramaten bulding, guest performances
became virtually impossible. Nevertheless there was one in New York.
8 In Sweden the speaking clock Fröken Ur (Miss Clock) on the radio has always been a woman.
11. J.B.P. Molière, The Misanthrope
When B produced his second Misanthrope, he gave two reasons for doing
it: “It’s hard to say why I love The Misanthrope. If you definitely can say
that you love a woman, you have stopped loving her, right? Perhaps I have
a misanthrope inside me?” When he produced the play for the third time,
in 1995, there was an added reason; in the theatre program it says:
In 1957 I staged The Misanthrope at Malmö City Theatre, in 1973 at the Royal
[Theatre] in Copenhagen. In 1978 I experienced Ariane Mnouchkine’s
imperishable master film about Molière. I realized that I had not earlier
understood. Hence this third attempt. In deep collegiate gratitude I wish
to dedicate this Misanthrope to Ariane Mnouchkine.
B left it to the audience to guess what he had earlier not understood but
now, in his third attempt, apparently had comprehended. He later indicated
that Alceste should be done not as a young rebel but as “an aging man” who
has suffered a “bitter fiasco” (Sjögren, 2002: 143). Yet in his 1995 production
Alceste was on the contrary remarkably young. The new insight applied
instead to Célimène. To Andréason in Göteborgs-Posten it meant that the
traditional picture of her was turned around. “Instead of a pleasure-seeking
devil she is a woman who has seen through the men’s vanity and stupidity.”
The Misanthrope is an enigmatic play, open to various interpretations.
B abstained from the rather strongly period-oriented approaches he had
applied in his earlier productions and was, as we shall see, this time more
interested in updating the play. The production became a suggestive floating
between 17th century costumes and manners, and 20th century allusions on
a bare, universal stage. Fundamental was of course Alceste‘s and Célimène’s
contrasting experience of life; they are in that respect “each other’s halves”
(Sjöman, 1969: 92).
Responsible for the new translation was Hans Alfredson, a well-known
writer, actor, and cabaretier in Sweden. The classical alexandrine used in
Le Misanthrope is a twelve-syllable line, in which each syllable is separately
pronounced, and given equal weight. The lines rhyme aa bb cc dd ff etc.
In his translation, Alfredson remarks in the theatre program, he resorts to
what he calls “softened alexandrines” rhyming abc abc de de ff. Indicating
another translation problem, he notes that rhyming in French, where many
words have the same ending, is easier than in Swedish.
Like Swedish, French has two pronouns of address, the formal vous
and the informal tu. In Le Misanthrope all the characters use the formal
pronoun. Adjusting to this, Alfredson consistently renders vous as ni. But
in the performance B had the friends Alceste and Philinte and the lovers
Alceste and Célimène address each other with the informal du. This meant
updating the play while at the same time make these intimate forms clash
with the 17th century costumes. Célimène surrounds herself with a number
of men courting her without showing an obvious preference for any of
them; they are equal even in her way of addressing them. This pattern was
upset in the performance where Alceste was privileged by means of the
intimate address.
B provided a translation with substantial deletions and changes The
purpose of this was either thematic, stylistic or simply in order to increase
intelligibility. Some of the changes were a natural consequence of passages
having been deleted.
The performance opened with the ordinary curtain rising only to reveal
another curtain. Reproduced on this second or inner curtain was Watteau’s
La Partie carrée,1 from circa 1713. The painting depicts two young women
and a young man, all in elegant silk costumes, seated in an aristocratic
garden. In front of them stands a white-dressed Pierrot with a guitar slung
over his back. The attention of the three seated figures concerns Pierrot.
Did the painting visualie an unequal rivalry between the two men? Or
did it rather suggest the fascination of the three ‘ordinary’ figures for the
theatrical one, the fascination of an ‘audience’ for a ‘performer’ anticipating
what was soon to take place? Talking and laughter was heard from behind
the curtain mirroring what was going on in front of it in the auditorium,
providing a sound link between stage and audience. Visually and aurally a
teatrum mundi had been created.
Suddenly, the Pierrot of the painting was seen standing
leaning against the wings with his gaze fixed on the audience, absolutely
quiet–a real life Pierrot. We understand he is one of the company who in
just a minute will start to perform The Misanthrope on the main stage of
the Royal Dramatic Theatre” (Zern in Dagens Nyheter).
After the two curtains had risen, the performance opened with a cho-
reographic prelude by Donya Feuer in Célimène’s salon where most of the
action was to unfold. On the green square carpet, with a black three-partite
1 The title refers to a party consisting of four people, in this case two men and two women.
J.B.P. Molière, The Misanthrope 159
sofa as the only piece of furniture, the eight main characters were seen,
immobile for a few seconds. Célimène was fittingly in a central position,
Alceste to the left in his simple dark-blue dress markedly different from the
colourful, vain, and feminine-looking costumes of the other men. Behind
Célimène, Pierrot held up a bandage. When he blindfolded her all the others
began to move around her to elegant harpsichord music by Scarlatti. The
game of Blind Man’s Buff had begun,2 a children’s game in which the ‘blind’
person tries to identify the one he or she has caught by touching his or her
hair, face, clothes, etc. Célimène walked from one to the other in the circle
around her, beginning with Alceste, and finally stopped by Oronte, whom
she identified. At this moment, Alceste ran to the corner downstage left.
Off came her bandage. All participants applauded.
Célimène’s undecisive moving around, her choice of Oronte and Alceste’s
desperate reaction to it – everything foreshadowed her indecision regarding
her suitors and Alceste’s fear that she would choose his most dangerous
rival.
The game finished, everyone walked toward the curtained door upstage
into an inner room, where a decked table indicated that this was the dining-
room where dinner was going to be served. Unwilling to join the others,
Alceste still remained in his corner until two of the women forced him to go
with them to the dining room. But seconds later he broke away and rushed
back to the salon, where he unheroically stumbled and fell downstage
centre. His “best friend” Philinte appeared, a red book in his hand, and tried
to persuade Alceste to behave in accordance with social decorum. At this
point Molière’s play begins.
The reason for Alceste’s dismissing first line – “Leave me alone!” – though
in hindsight highly characteristic of his misanthropic nature, remains
somewhat cryptic to the recipient. Why is he so unfriendly toward his
friend at this moment? B provided a reasonable explanation in the little
dumbshow preceding the actual action. Célimène’s ‘choice’ of Oronte had
seriously hurt him. His falling was the result of inner turbulence. His “Leave
me alone!” was the reaction of someone who had not won the game and was
sorry for himself. His stage position at this moment was anticipatory. B’s
2 The inspiration for this may well have come from Ibsen’s The Wild Duck where Gregers Werle
at the end of Act I, pointing to the inner room, tells his father that the guests “are playing Blind
Man’s Buff with Mrs Sörby,” his father’s new wife. The erotic implication is obvious. The Wild
Duck was produced by B at Dramaten in 1972. Gregers was played by the same actor, Max von
Sydow, who had earlier done Alceste in B’s 1957 production of The Misanthrope. In the prompt
script for his second production of the play B had significantly written “Gregers” (Marker/Marker,
1992: 167).
Alceste, Zern (1996: 64) remarked, often positioned himself on the forestage
as if he was evicted – or had evicted himself – from the social world of the
court. Downstage he was in eye contact with the audience, seeking support,
as it were, from them.
When it appeared that Alceste had hurt his knee, Philinte gave him his
napkin to serve as a bandage. A bandage now linked Célimène and Alceste.
In the following Alceste often paid attention to his knee. It indicated at once
his egocentricity and his unwillingness to listen to Philinte whom he kept
criticising for his hypocritical attitude to his fellow men. B strengthened
Alceste’s criticism by having him regard Philinte as equally corrupt as
everyone else. Alceste’s
I detest their exaggerated friendliness,

the crude flatter, the tone of voice when they talk.
became
I detest this exaggerated friendliness,

the crude flatter, the tone of voice when you (ni) talk. (my italics)
Alceste here naturally addressed Philinte. But in the following lines –
What kind of strange world is this in which we live,

where openness in conversation is considered misplaced?
Where anyone may call anyone his friend?
Damn it! I call such falsehood swinishness!
– delivered downstage centre, he addressed the audience. By changing the

addressee in this way the audience was suddenly included in this “strange
world”; by implication it too was made the butt of Alceste’s criticism.
Tired of Alceste’s constant grumbling and unable to change his mind,
Philinte sat down on the sofa. His static position markedly contrasted with
Alceste’s restless mobility. Telling his friend that although he noticed as many
human frailties around him as Alceste, Philinte preferred, he said, “to close
his eyes.” To indicate his non-involvement B had him read his book. Sitting
down next to Philinte, Alceste tried to stir him with a hypothetic example:
A close friend betrays you recklessly and coolly

and says that you have Leans toward philinte, pokes his breast.
perverse preferences. philinte turns away.
In the prompt script B at this point notes: “It could be that Philinte is homo-
sexual. So this is an unpleasant subject.” This would help explain Philinte’s
extreme loyalty to Alceste whose views so radically differed from his own.
After a while, the roles were reversed. Alceste remained sitting while
Philinte shut his book, stood up and, standing above Alceste, asked him:
“Will the lady’s faults be forgiven, if she is very pretty?” He was ironically
referring to the discrepancy between Alceste’s rejection of hypocrisy and
slander on one hand and his infatuation with the “cold, gossipy, coquette
Célimène” on the other. He had thereby, at the end of the first scene, pointed
to the central crevice in Alceste’s armour. When he asked him why he
was so jealous “of his most stupid rival,” Oronte, dressed in a black, richly
gold-ornate juste-au-corps and with an absurdly high wig indicating his
stuck-up nature, stole from the dining-room pompously raising his legs,
then made his exit to the left. Here was the rival just referred to.
When Oronte re-entered with a loud “There you are!” addressed to Al-
ceste, the audience that had already seen him realised how false his greeting
was; Oronte had calculatingly chosen his moment and manner of entrance.
As soon as he noticed Oronte, Alceste hurried downstage left in the hope to
escape him. There he pretended not to hear Oronte’s flattering. This did not
stop Oronte. After embracing and cheek-kissing Alceste, he declared: “I will
gladly help, if I may, /introducing you Whispering in alceste’s ear. to the
royal court.” Behind Oronte’s back, fully visible to the audience, Philinte,
upstage right, was at this moment gesturing to Alceste that he should accept
Oronte’s offer to help, but Alceste’s counter-gesture indicated the opposite.
Oronte had come to ask for Alceste‘s opinion about a sonnet he had just
written. “I know that your taste is good,” the text has it. B strengthened
this to a flattering and self-flattering: “you are yourself a writer.” With his
flattering of Alceste and his offer to help him at the King’s court, Oronte
thought he had prepared for a positive reaction to his sonnet. But Alceste
reacted differently. He did not wish to judge the poem:
alceste. Spare me!

oronte. Why?
alceste. Because I am honest.
And honesty can sometimes be rather awful.
Pause.
oronte. But that is precisely what I want. I want to hear everything!
Oronte was flabbergasted by Alceste’s warning. How react to this? The pause
indicated that he needed time to come up with a suitable, shrewd answer.
The situation was highly comical since it meant that in his (pretended)
candour Oronte was outdoing the advocate of absolute sincerity.
For the recital of the sonnet Oronte fluttered with a paper as if it was a
fan, backed a few steps to reach a higher, more impressive level. From this
platform he declared that the title of the sonnet was “The Hope” and that
it was about “a woman.” With crossed arms – a frequent, self-embracing
position with him – Alceste, looking frontally, indicated his emotional
distance to the recital. When Oronte declared that he had written the poem
in fifteen minutes, Alceste in protest made his exit. Philinte by contrast
exclaimed: “Fantastic!” The first lines of the poem read in relatively literal
English translation (Molière, 2008: 219):
Hope, it is true, alleviates our woe,

And helps us for a moment to endure.
But, Phyllis, this advantage brings us low,
If nothing further comes to bring a cure.3
In the performance the lines were replaced by:
I hope you’ll be my queen of heart!

My trouser swells from ruttish smart.
Oh, Phyllis, be monogamous at last
and be just mine – and fast.
Instead of expressing longing for acceptance by the beloved, suitable for pres-
entation in an aristocratic salon, B’s audience was offered a coarse picture
of sexual urge. Although it seems unlikely that Oronte would expect praise
for such crudeness, B ignored this aspect and instead stressed the erotic
rivalry between the two men; the hinted-at polygamy of Phyllis/Célimène
fitted into this pattern. The hypocritical manners in the salon were in fact
often undercut by demonstrations of crude reality. Below the artificially
refined veneer the characters incidentally revealed their beastly nature.
In his judgment of the poem Alceste is not harshly straightforward, as
one would have expected both from his proclaimed morals and from the
3 In the original the lines read:

L’éspoir, il est vrai, nous soulage
Et nous berce un temps notre ennui;
Mais, Philis, le triste avantage,
Lorsque rien ne marche après lui!
warning he had just given Oronte that he would be an honest judge. Instead
of attacking the poem directly, he invents a story about a friend who had
written a poor poem to be judged by Alceste. His criticism of Oronte’s poem
in this way becomes oblique. Time and again Oronte makes it clear that he
sees through Alceste’s dodge and asks for his sincere opinion: “Your message
is, if I have understood you rightly / that I should simply stop writing poems.”
But Alceste remains devious with his repeated: “I haven’t said that.” The
roles are comically reversed. The hypocrite asks for sincerity, the sincere
man becomes hypocritical.
When Alceste declared that he hated “the tastelessness of our time, so
coarse and gaudy” and praised “the ingeniousness of our ancestors,” their
“naturalness and simplicity,” he was standing downstage, looking straight at
the audience. The message hereby got a double addressee. The 17th century
was fused with the 20th. Exemplifying what he means Alceste twice recites
a poem which in English has been rendered as:
If the King had sold me cheap

His great town of Paree [Paris],
But I was not allowed to keep
My darling there with me,
I’d say to King Henri:
“Take back your great Paree.
For I would rather sleep,
And my own dear with me.” (Molière 2008: 222)
This simple “old love song” – Alceste‘s characterisation in a deleted line –

was replaced by the translator with the first and last stanzas of a poem by
the 17th century German poet Angelus Silesius; in English, the last stanza
reads:
His [God’s] spirit’s western wind

touches your warm cheek.
The urge of love is strong;
be the flower on his ground.
Molière stylistically contrasts two love poems. The performance contrasted

two kinds of love, the poet’s crude sexual longing for his beloved and God’s
love for mankind. Stylistically, the lack of talent in either of the poems in
the original was in the performance replaced by the aesthetic discrepancy
between Oronte’s flat sonnet and Silesius’ artistic poem. By first singing
Silesius’ stanza, then reciting it, Alceste indicated its hymn-like nature.
Especially at this point Alceste, “in his dark-blue coat and with white
around his neck,” looked like “an adept of Schartau among gaudy peacocks”
(Andréason in Göteborgs-Posten). 4
The five acts in Molière’s comedy are all set in Célimène’s salon. B moved
Act II to Célimène’s bedroom. Mid-stage was a double bed with canopy.
In it Célimène was having breakfast, while Alceste, in white nightcap and
nightshirt, was reading the red book he seemed to have taken over from
Philinte.5 Basque and Dorine were tittering with Célimène. Her social
communion contrasted with Alceste’s isolation. The elegance of the sur-
roundings was somewhat disturbed when Basque left with a chamber pot.
After a while Alceste got irritated and stood up, left the room but quickly
returned, now in a dressing gown and without nightcap. Sitting down on
a chair, he brusquely addressed Célimène: “Now I wish to have it out with
you!” But very soon he was back in bed, admitting that “a glance from you
makes my whole body warm.” He nevertheless continued to blame her for
having had too many men; the text more mildly speaks of merely having
looked at too many of them. Mirroring herself in the big mirror Dorine had
just brought in, Célimène rejoined that her smiling to all the men courting
her ought to please Alceste more than her falling for one of them. Threatened
with this possibility, Alceste dropped his book, gave a roar and left the
room, slamming the door behind him – only to return immediately. When
Célimène blamed him for constantly nagging at her, Alceste, putting her
on his lap, assured her that the nagging would end after they had seriously
talked everything out. As he was saying this, Célimène willingly stretched
out to let him kiss her body all over.
They were abruptly interrupted by Basque’s announcement that Acaste
had come to pay a visit. Célimène at once happily jumped up and let Dorine
put a peignoir around her. When the arrival of yet another of Célimène’s
admirers, Clitandre, was announced, Alceste found it high time to leave the
room. Kneeling before him, Célimène in a caressing voice entreated him to
stay. He refused. She then brusquely told him to get out. Kicking his bottom,
she declared “Do as you like!” while suggesting that he should do as she liked.
4 Schartauism is an austere branch of Lutheranism. Andréason was reminded of Henrik, the

young priest representing B’s father, in the TV-series The Best Intentions (1991). An even closer
parallel is the young theologian Henrik in Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), torn between strict
morals and love for his father’s wife. Ring in Svenska Dagbladet found Alceste dressed like Gösta
Berling, the priest in Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Gösta Berling’s Saga (1890).
5 In the prompt script B speaks of “the red love book.”
Élianthe and Philinte entered and were seen kissing, an early prepara-
tion for their marriage-in-store at the end. After them a very tall Clitandre
entered from left, a very short Acaste from right. Comical contrast by
symmetry. Joyful at their arrival, Célimène jumped up and down on her
bed like a little girl who has suddenly been treated to surprise presents. The
two courtiers sat down on either side of Célimène, now lying in bed. Their
rivalry had become more intimate. The audience experienced them, Zern
in Dagens Nyheter observed, via the jealous Alceste in the foreground – a
subjective ‘shot.’
Having insulted the powerful Oronte about his sonnet, Alceste was
called to stand trial by a burlesque Orderly. Handed a paper containing the
poem, Alceste stated that Oronte’s sonnet might be useful for his “personal
hygiene,” dried his behind with it and threw it away. The scene ended with
a boisterous crowd jumping onto the bed – for group sex?
Back in the salon, now with a high black-framed mirror left and another
one and two black chairs right, Dorine was chased by Acaste who was
without wig and coat, a piece of shirt visible outside his fly. Gradually he
got himself dressed, then approached Dorine with his sword pointed to
her. Seconds later she was caressing the front of his trousers. While this
licentiousness occurred left, Clitandre on the right was similarly occupied
with Basque. Both servants were paid for their services. An emblematic
picture was in this way provided of the sex trade between masters and
servants, higher and lower classes. The scene ended with Clitandre’s sug-
gestion that he and Acaste should agree that if one of them could prove
that he had gained Célimène’s favour, the other should abstain from all
demands on her. This proposition was accompanied by the tall Clitandre
bending down to the short Acaste. The gestural indication of equality was
comically contradicted by the corporal inequality of the two.
Under the pretext that she wished to give a piece of advice to her friend
Célimène, Arsinoé had suddenly come to visit. Before she entered, Célimène
gave Acaste and Clitandre an annihilating description of her, calling her
prudish, “jealous, a female spider that had lost its males.” Her sarcasm
changed to anger when she mentioned how Arsinoé “last year” – B changed
this to “yesterday” – had tried to blacken Célimène’s reputation. This was
uttered frontally to the audience downstage. When Arsinoé arrived upstage,
dressed in what had just been called “the black veils of morality,”6 a cross
hanging around her neck, Célimène quickly turned around, physically and
6 Arsinoé’s dress had dark-red ‘leaks’ in its blackness; even outwardly the contrast between
confinement/convention and the sensuality underneath it was expressed (Ekmanner, 1996: 31).
mentally, and warmly welcomed her. The distance in time from backbiting
malice about someone absent to enthusiasm when this someone had ap-
peared was minimal, thereby comically highlighting Célimène’s hypocrisy.
Both women curtsied deeply to one another and artificially mimed kisses
in the air.
The power struggle began immediately. Célimène asked Arsinoé to
sit down but Arsinoé preferred to remain standing. In artificial falsetto,
reminiscent of mewing, she reported how she had tried to defend Célimène
at a party when – and this was her true aggressive message – everyone
had attacked her licentiousness. During this tirade Célimène protectively
opened her fan, then closed it and turned it, like a weapon, against Arsinoé.
She then half turned her back to Arsinoé and watched herself in the high
mirror left.
Soon the roles were switched. It was now Célimène’s turn to tell Arsinoé
about her dubious reputation, this too under the pretext of giving well-
meaning advice to a good friend. Arsinoé now protected herself against
Célimène’s hypocritical maliciousness by looking at herself in a hand-
mirror. When biblically remarking that only he who is himself without sin
has the right to blame others – a criticism that applied as much to the play’s
other moralist: Alceste – Célimène parodied Arsinoé’s mewing. A culmen
was reached when the two women stood with raised right arms, ready to
beat each other, a bodily illustration of the mental fight that was going
on between the older and the younger woman, ending with Célimène’s
crushing and, in Swedish, very rhythmic hammer blows: “det fínns ju dóm
som víll men ínte kán” (there are of course those who want but are not able),
a reference to Arsinoé’s age-determined ‘frigidity.’7
Left alone with Alceste, Arsinoé revealed that she had a letter at home
which proved Célimène’s infidelity to him. Both verbally and by her body
language Arsinoé indicated that by means of this revelation she hoped to
steal Alceste from Célimène.
In Act IV the carpet in the salon had changed from hopeful green to
passionate red. Élianthe and Philinte entered and sat down on the two black
chairs left. Philinte criticised Alceste’s rigid mentality, Élianthe defended
it. She took up a bundle of yarn and Philinthe, spreading his arms, will-
ingly helped her winding it into a ball. When contradicted by his beloved,
Philante desperately threw up his hands so that the yarn got messed up, an
7 Arsinoé’s and Célimène’s hateful attacks on each other at the pretence of giving each other
friendly advice have a counterpart in Charlotte’s and Anne’s revelations about their husbands’
infidelity in Smiles of a Summer Night.
indication of his emotional dilemma. The scene ended with his kneeling
before Élianthe and her kissing him on the cheek. Witnessing this, Alceste
entered with Célimène’s letter in his hand. Revealing its content he found
a tender consoler in Élianthe whose sympathetic tears revealed that she
was in love with him rather than with Philinte.
When Célimène entered with a bouquet of yellow roses – yellow being
traditionally associated with jealousy – Alceste asked her to explain the
aggravating letter. Accusing her of faithlessness, he received the crushing
reply: “But suppose the letter was written to a lady?” At this point both
Alceste and the audience could feel uncertain, Alceste because this would
be annihilating for his own premature conclusion regarding the letter’s
addressee, the audience because in a play where various kinds of sexual
behaviour had been demonstrated, lesbianism might not be excluded.
Could it be that Célimène’s keeping all her suitors at a distance was based
on indifference to the opposite sex? Not surprisingly, Alceste chose to
regard Célimène’s indication of addressee as a lie. And tired of Alceste’s
complaint about her ‘polygamy,’ Célimène came up with quite another
explanation: Oronte was the addressee. Not knowing whether she was again
lying or telling the truth, Alceste saw no other possibility than to accept
her explanation. He admitted that his love for her was stronger than his
love for the truth and even expressed the hope that Célimène’s life would
turn insufferable so that he could sacrifice himself for her. Dryly remarking
that this was a peculiar way of wishing someone well, Célimène threw the
yellow roses at him.
The dénouement occurs, traditionally, close to the end of the play. The
nature of it is surprising in a play subtitled comedy. With B, early in the
scene all the main characters were lined up on the forestage, first three
and three opposite each other, Alceste separated from them, then in a row
facing the audience, then in profile all of them bowing or curtseying to each
other except Alceste who abstained from this politeness and kept looking
away from the rest.
What followed were recitals of selected bits from Célimène’s letters to the
men present, revealing that she had been slandering to her addressees about
their rivals and in this way kept them all hoping for a favourable position
vis-à-vis herself. Disappointed, the suitors now verbally took their revenge
by rejecting Célimène, after which they one after the other left the salon.
Except for Philinte and Élianthe, who were not involved in the débâcle, only
Alceste remained. He condescendingly declared that he forgave Célimène,
now remorsefully crying, for her hypocritical behaviour and suggested that
she spend the rest of her life with him in solitude so that they could forget the
injustices of the world. When Célimène in response declared that she was
willing to marry Alceste but not to leave her present urban environment,
he was outraged and, like the others, rejected her.8 Having earlier attracted
all the men around her, Célimène had become an outcast, repudiated by
them all. And having finished his relationship with Célimène, Alceste was
just as lonely as she was. The happy end prescribed for comedy was limited
to the secondary figures Philinte and Élianthe with their forthcoming
marriage. But, as Nelson (1964: 131) suggests, it is “a watered-down euphoria
which this marriage creates” when Élianthe “takes Philinte as a sort of
consolation prize.” In B’s version their happiness was further questioned
by Philinte’s remarkable reaction to Élianthe’s declaration that she was
willing to marry him. Rather than embrace and kiss her at this moment,
Philinte embraced and cheek-kissed Alceste, making the audience wonder
if Philinte’s love for Élianthe was not more pretended than real and if he
was not, as Alceste had earlier indicated, a homosexual in disguise – in that
case an up-to-date variation on the theme of hypocrisy. The play ended with
Philinte’s suggestion to Élianthe that they try to persuade Alceste to change
his misanthropic plan. This could be seen as providing the audience with
a hope for a marriage also for Alceste and Célimène or, as B saw it in 1973,
that the whole game will begin again (Wiingaard, 1976: 95).
Gossman (1963: 78) claims that it is because Célimène is the woman
most sought after that Alceste falls in love with her. “It is the world that he
seeks to reach and possess through her.” When stating that no one has ever
loved like him, Alceste, he suggests, is not only exaggerating, he is deluding
himself. For his love is merely a pretended means to an end.
This was not B’s interpretation. In his second production he saw Alceste
and Célimène essentially as children, a characteristic they shared with
many of his central characters. Alceste was “a neurotic child who loves both
himself and Célimène” (Wiingaard, 1976: 95). The same view seemed to be
behind the third production. Larsén in Sydsvenska Dagbladet found that B’s
Alceste was “above all young” and showed “abrupt changes between upright
love of truth and care for his helpless, tender love.” And Zern in Dagens Ny-
heter suspected that his demand for sincerity disguised “a childish impulse
always to be in the centre.” Assuming that Alceste’s love for Célimène was
genuine – and there were some signs of this in the performance – he was
not unlike another young man, close to B’s heart: the Student in The Ghost
Sonata, who in the course of this particular play becomes disillusioned
8 Alceste hates mankind for its corruption. But at this moment “he is most perverse when he
ignores the possibility of rescuing one sinner from her fallen state” (Gross, 1982: 122).
about mankind but, loving the Young Lady, makes her an exception to the
rule – until he realises that as the victim of original sin, she has the same
failings as everyone else.
The performance of The Misanthrope was on the whole well received by
the critics and had quite a long run. A planned presentation in New York
was called off because B found that the production had deteriorated, that
some actors, notably the actor playing Alceste, had taken liberties with
their parts. As a result the production no longer held up to the reputation of
representing “one of the best theatres in Europe” (Steene, 2005: 739). B was
criticised for not having attended performances after the opening; had he
done so, he could have prevented any deterioration and secured the New
York presentation.
12. Euripides, The Bacchae
Although B always kept away from classical Greek drama, there is one
exception: Euripides’ The Bacchae. His interest in this play, of all the an-
cient plays the one closest to the roots of drama, can be traced back to the
1950s. Two planned productions of it, one in 1954, the other in 1987, were
cancelled. But in 1991 B finally staged it as music drama at the Royal Opera
in Stockholm, with a score by Swedish composer Daniel Börtz. Two years
later a TV version of this production was broadcast in Sweden.1 And in 1996
B’s stage version of The Bacchae opened at Dramaten.
Ever since The Silence, originally called “God’s Silence,” B claimed that
he had lost his earlier belief in God. Whatever mercy may be found in this
life is not divine but human. The only love that exists is the love we offer
to and receive from one another. His handling of The Bacchae expressed
this conviction. The enduring discussion whether Euripides sides with
Pentheus or Dionysus2 B solved by siding with neither of them. In the strug-
gle between them mankind, represented primarily by Pentheus’ mother
Agave, is sacrificed. In her shape, humanity became the heroic victim in
all three productions.
The Bacchae is based on the mythological story of King Pentheus of
Thebes who is punished by the god Dionysus for refusing to worship him.
“In this play,” B says in the opera program, Euripides “makes a clean sweep
with the gods of power and the power of gods. He contrasts the holiness and
exposure of man with the atrocity and bloodthirstiness of the Superiors.”
This (contestable) interpretation of The Bacchae was fundamental to B’s
three productions of it. “What we are going to witness,” B writes in the opera
program (Euripides, 1991: 5f.), “is the frightening final phase of a divine
revenge planned for a considerable time.” And he continues:
In this performance the Bacchae are a collective consisting of highly

individualized characters. […] They have all replaced their civil names
with letters […] to indicate that these missionaries or anarchists or ter-
rorists left their status as individuals and members of a family when they
entered the anonymous community of the Bacchus crowd.
1 An analysis of this is found in Törnqvist, 2003: 93-99.

2 The two characters have been valued very differently by commentators on the play. See
Harsh, 1965: 237f.
In late Greek art, Dionysus is represented as beardless with long curly hair
looking more like a woman than a man; the theatre program for the stage
performance opens with a picture of this young god. In his productions
of The Bacchae, B, in agreement with this, had the traditionally male part
acted by a woman.3 The reason for this was undoubtedly that both the
dualism of Dionysus, who is called “immensely terrifying and immensely
mild,” and his protean nature could be physically indicated in androgynous
terms. In the play Dionysus’ initial mildness turns into terrifying wrath
when he eventually takes revenge on those who deny his divinity. Dionysus’
androgynous nature also relates to today’s discussion of gender, both on
the human and on the divine level. On the human level we find a gender
opposition between the male Pentheus who denies Dionysus’ divinity and
the female Bacchae who worship him as a god. 4 The polarity recalls the one
between the Roman state religion and the suppressed early Christians who
were often women. In psychological terms we might speak of an opposition
between ‘male’ rationality and ‘female’ emotion, between the conscious
and the unconscious.
Having narrowed the performance from the huge opera stage to the small
TV screen, B presented his third version in the small Paint Room with only
nine rows for the spectators; the spectators were in other words very close
to the actors. The simple setting consisted of a black backdrop and black
side walls. “White lines on the floor created a symmetrical pattern: a large
circle centre stage surrounded by a rectangle, and straight lines that formed
a cross, dividing both circle and rectangle” (Holder, 2005: 73). In the middle
of this circle a black box represented the altar of Semele, Dionysus‘ deceased
mother. A circular light confirmed the holiness of the altar and the circular
domain around it. More than thirty music fragments by Daniel Börtz, who
had earlier composed the music for B’s opera versions, were played by a
flutist and two percussionists.
In the two opera versions the twelve chorus members were orientally
and varyingly dressed to indicate their different national origins. They were
individually named by Greek letters (Alpha, Beta, etc.) which gave them
3 In The Ritual (1969), the woman in the performing trio is named Thea. Thea is the female
form of the Greek word for god as well as the first part of the word theatre suggesting a link
between the divine and this art form. In the stage version of The Bacchae the part of Dionysus
was actually planned for a male actor, Torsten Flinck. But when he fell ill, Elin Klinga received
the part (Sjögren, 2002: 358).
4 It is the old people and the women who turn to Dionysus, Ring noted in in his review of the
stage version in Svenska Dagbladet, groups which “lack status and the right to vote. The religion
is initially presented mostly as a democratic project.”
Euripides, The Bacchae 173
a certain anonymity. The reason for this differentiation was presumably

the same as when B in the opening of his TV version of Mozart’s The Magic
Flute showed a multitude of individual faces listening to the overture of the
opera. In either case it showed that the collective represented humanity.
In the stage version the number of chorus members was reduced to seven,
all of them dressed in black, presumably indicating their representation
of ‘mourning,’ suffering mankind. Slight differences in cut indicated indi-
vidual variation. As in the opera versions they were named after the Greek
alphabet and had individual lines.
Next to the chorus there was, as in the opera versions, a mysterious
figure added by B: Thalatta. Named after the Greek word for sea, she was
a mute, horned figure,
a stand-in for the god5 who in her ritual dances expressed “the emotions
of the women around Dionysos” (Iversen, 1998: 74). The enigmatic Thalatta
in the stage version, Zern in Dagens Nyheter found, was “a character radiat-
ing pain and suffering, small, thin and bony, with the mask of her face
perforated by the black hole of the mouth and with blood-stained hands
at the end of the pale arms.”6 In the prompt script B notes that “everybody
touches Thalatta”; this, he adds, is “a ritual of consolation” for the Bacchae.
Shortly after their first appearance, the chorus has the following lines
in the translation used by B:
Come Bacchae, come Bacchae!

The god of thunder, born of a god,
Dionysus – come with him
from Phrygia’s mountains to
the broad streets of Greece,
bring here our God of Thunder, yes, bring here
him
who was born by his mother too early
and driven out of her womb
with terrible pains of childbirth
hit by a flash of lightning
winged sent by Zeus:
5 The horns linked her to Dionysus, who was born, the chorus tells us, as “a god with bull’s
horns.” You could also think of goat’s horns; the goat was a holy animal for Dionysus; the word
tragedy means ‘goat song.’
6 With her white, masklike face this Thalatta pointed back to the figure of Death in The
Seventh Seal (1957) and forward to the androgynous figure of Death in In the Presence of a Clown
(1997).
her life was taken by the lightning.

And in the space where he was born
his father, the son of Chronos,
hid him safely
in his thigh with golden clasps
so that Hera did not see it
When fate had so decided he gave birth
to a god with bull’s horns
and crowned it with snakes
which he had entwined. Since that day
Maenads wear wild snakes twined in their hair.
[…]
Soon the whole country will dance
and then the God of Thunder will lead the way to
the mountain where the women live,
the crowd of women who
broke up, fled from shuttle and web,
stung by Dionysus.
chorus line up frontally downstage, tambourines in their hands, three on

each side of alfa, the leader of the chorus. They all sing. Come Bacchae!
Two beats on tambourines. Come Bacchae!
The god of thunder, born of a god,
Dionysus.
alfa speaks. Come with him
from Phrygia’s mountains to
the broad streets of Greece.
all speak. Bring here our God of Thunder.
lambda, moving to center, speaks. Like the following speakers she is ac-
companied by rhythmic tambourine beats. Yes, bring here him
who was born by his mother too early
and driven out of her womb
with terrible pains of childbirth,
xi, moving to center, speaks. hit by a flash of lightning
winged sent by Zeus:
her life taken by the lightning.
sigma, moving to center, speaks. And in the space where he was born
his father, the son of Chronos,
hid him safely

in his thigh with golden clasps
so that Hera did not see it.
zeta, moving to center, speaks. When fate had so decided he gave birth
to a god with bull’s horns
and crowned it with snakes
which he had entwined. Since that day
Maenads wear wild snakes twined in their hair.
[…]
xi speaks. Soon the whole country will dance
and then the God of Thunder will lead the way to
the mountain,
all speak. the mountain
xi speaks. where the women live,
the crowd of women who
broke up, fled from shuttle and web,
stung by Dionysus.
Flute music. dionysus slowly rises from Semele’s altar, as if born from it.7
He has long blond hair and wears a long white robe. One after the other
members of the chorus slowly turn around and face him. They form a
ring and dance around him accompanied by the flute.
Taken prisoner Dionysus, disguised as the leader of the Bacchae, appeared

before Pentheus – not unlike Jesus before Pilate – with a rope around his
middle. The first confrontation between the two enemies was surprising:
pentheus with sleek dark hair tied in a knot at the back, dressed in a brown
leather chiton, sitting in his armchair-cum-throne. Yes, stranger, you do not
look bad. Up to dionysus. That Points to his hair. appeals to the women
for whom you have come here.
Look at the curls coiling across the cheek! Kneels next to him.
No wrestler has such hair. It smells of love.
Also, your skin is white. Of course,
if you wish to snare Aphrodite with your beauty,
you must take care that it doesn’ t get burnt in the sun.
7 Cf. the remark in the prompt script about Dionysus’ first appearance: “Dionysus […] is born
out of the black backdrop onto the altar.”
This first meeting between the two was characterised not, as one would
have expected, by aggression on Pentheus’ part but by “love at first sight”
and “violent attraction.” (prompt script). What was here expressed through
costume – the knee-short chiton was not unlike a modern short skirt –
and body language was how Pentheus’ conscious attitude was in conflict
with his subconscious emotions – note the ‘suppression’ of his hair. The
discrepancy between his words and his body language slowly increased,
indicating how his power was gradually undermined:
pentheus behind dionysus. Then we’ll keep his pretty body fettered.
dionysus. And the god will liberate me whenever I wish it.
pentheus. Of course, whenever you shout among the Bacchae!
Soft music.
dionysus. He is here now, he sees whatever happens to me.
pentheus. Where? I cannot see a god here.
dionysus. He is where I am. Godless you cannot see him.
Music stops.
pentheus. Seize him. guard and two soldiers in. He mocks both me
and Thebes.
dionysus. No, don’t tie me! You’re crazy if you do!
pentheus squatting by his armchair. I have more power than you. – Tie
him, I say.
guard and soldiers up to dionysus.
dionysus. What do you say? What do you do? Do you know who you are?
pentheus still squatting by chair. Pentheus, born by Agave, begot by
Echion.
dionysus up to pentheus, leans toward him. That name condemns you
to an awful fate.
pentheus. Away to the stable! Backs down to the floor. Fetter him by a
stall,8
Leaning above dionysus in coitus position. then he can glare in the dark-
ness as he likes.
What was here indicated was a wish on Pentheus’ part to visit “the stran-
ger” – not realising that he was Dionysus – “in the darkness,” unseen by
others. His attempt later to spy on the sexual debauchery of the Bacchae
here seemed anticipated. Behind what has been termed Dionysus’ – the
8 The translation here has höhäck (hay-rack) which B changed to spilta (stall), no doubt to
suggest a connection with infant Jesus in the crib.
wine god’s – intoxication or hypnotisation of Pentheus was Pentheus’

subconscious wish to recognise his own suppressed nature. In Dionysus
and Pentheus, B illustrated the symbiotic split inside each human being
between ratio and instinct. Assisted by his theatrical resources, B could
suggestively dramatise what is latent in the text.
When Pentheus shows a desire to see the Bacchae performing their rites,
Dionysus persuades him to dress up as a woman to avoid detection by
the blood-thirsty Maenads. Pentheus obeys. B had him appear in a white
robe, similar to Dionysus’ own. Once in Kithairon Dionysus suggests that
Pentheus takes up a position high in a tree to get a good overview. What the
god does not tell him is that he will be an easy target for the Maenads. Led
by Agave who, drunk from wine in Dionysian rage, mistakes her son for a
wild lion, the Maenads tear him to pieces. The dismemberment (sparagmos)
of Pentheus, indicated by the chorus, was by B voiced in complete darkness.
Their burning oil lamps gave the impression that the cruel deed occurred
under eternal stars, as if fated.
Returning to Thebes, Agave, still under the illusion, proudly carries Pen-
theus’ head covered in a cloth in her arms. Her father Cadmus admonishes
her to look carefully at what is inside it. In the translation we get:
agave. I see – I unfortunate – an immeasurable pain.

cadmus. Do you really think it is a lion’s head?
agave. No, it is Pentheus! It is his head I am holding!
cadmus. Whom we mourned long before you recognized it.
agave. Who killed him? How did this come into my hand?
cadmus. O bitter truth, too slowly do you come to light.
agave. Tell me! My heart can’t stand waiting any more!
B shortened this to –
agave. I see – an immeasurable pain.

cadmus. Do you really think it is a lion’s head?
agave. No, it is Pentheus! It is his head I am holding!
Who killed him? How did this come into my hand?
Tell me! My heart can’t stand waiting any more!
– thereby focussing more strongly on Agave’s reaction, the essence of the

sequence.
The ending was performed as follows:9
agave. Father, do you see that I have changed? Up to cadmus. They

embrace.
Strong clap of thunder, strong white light from behind the audience lighting
up the stage.
dionysus in his long white robe, a white half-mask over his face, black lips,
appears from behind audience. His shadow is cast on the stage.
Look here! Look here!
I am your great god Dionysus,
the son who was born here in Thebes
by Zeus!
Cadmus, kneeling, prayed for forgiveness, but Dionysus refused with a curt
“Too late!” and justified his inflexibility by adding: “Your fate was long ago
determined by Zeus.” Cadmus is sentenced to be turned into a dragon, Agave
and her sisters are condemned to exile.
agave. To whom can I go? I have no home any more.

cadmus. I don’t know. Your father is helpless.
agave up to cadmus, embraces his head. Father, I cry for you.
cadmus. And I for you, my child,
I cry for you, for your sisters and for you.
agave moves away right. With her right hand to her womb she utters a
furious, wordless primal scream.
Then screams. What an awful punishment did
Dionysus, the ruler, call down
on you and your house.
dionysus appears in an opening in the black backdrop, now in a tight
body-shaped, ‘male’ white dress, strongly lit from behind. His appearance
is accompanied by an ear-splitting, ringing sound.
Screams. What an awful offence did I suffer
When the Thebans refused to worship my name.
Up to agave, now lying on the floor. He puts his foot on her, then exits right.
9 Cf. the slightly different description in the prompt script: “The catastrophe (The Dionysian
light). Dionysus stealing in, gliding. All try individually to protect themselves, pressing against
the floor. Cadmus covers his eyes. Agave is the only one who remains standing. Dionysus
attacks her soundlessly from behind, knocks her down and places himself on top of her.” Here
the baseness of the god and the heroism of (wo)man clearly comes to the fore.
Normal light. cadmus and agave are lying on the floor. They hold hands.
cadmus. Poor daughter, farewell. Lets her hand loose.
You have a long way to the bliss I wished for you. Exits front.
chorus exit front.
agave left alone on stage.
Where are my sisters? O bring me to them,
my travel companions to foreign lands!
[…]
chorus sit frontally on forestage, sing accompanied by flute and drums.
at one point recalling thunder followed by a siren
In many shapes a god takes form
and often the gods mock our hope,
for nothing turns out as we had expected.
A god treads his way unexpected.
They enter the stage one after the other and lay down their thyrsus staffs
and tambourines by Semele’s altar. Music culminates with ‘thunder’ fol-
lowed by ‘siren.’
all except alfa exit in different directions. Drum rolls.
alfa speaks. This is what our play was to show.
Already in 1960, B declared that “art lost its basic creative drive the mo-
ment it was separated from worship” (B, 1960: xxii). To make the god-man
relationship in The Bacchae urgent to a modern audience, the faith in
Dionysus somehow needed to be related to today’s religious climate. In
his opera versions of the play, B stressed the parallels between Dionysus
and Christ in various ways (Törnqvist, 2003: 94f.). In the stage version this
was less pronounced but certainly not absent. I have already pointed to the
similarity between Dionysus-Pentheus and Jesus-Pilate and the closeness
between Pentheus in the stall and Jesus in the crib. It is significant in this
context that the first Messenger in the text, reporting about the orgies of
the Bacchae, was called the Shepherd in the performance. The shepherds,
we recall, were the first to discover and pay homage to infant Jesus.
Fundamental in the play is the idea that Dionysus, born as a god, appears
in human shape; in this he is Christ-like. Like Christ, he performs many
miracles. Like Christianity, Dionysian faith was when it emerged a new
religion, first embraced by common people. When Tiresias predicts that the
new god whom Pentheus ridicules will eventually gain supremacy in Greece,
he is foreshadowing the explosive growth of Christianity. The similarity goes
even deeper. “In the Catholic communion,” B has said, “there’s something
called the elevation. At a particular moment the priest raises the chalice.
[…] The Catholic ritual of the elevation is a relic from the cult of Dionysus”
(B, 1993: 240f.)10 There is in fact a strong relationship between the Bacchae’s
consumption of the god’s flesh and the consumption in the communion of
bread and wine, figuratively Christ’s flesh and blood.
Disguised from the audience was another aspect of the play which was
of great importance to B as a director. A look at his TV plays The Ritual
and After the Rehearsal (1984),11 both highly inspired by The Bacchae, will
make this clear.
When the Judge in The Ritual rapes Thea, his act is tantamount to the
rational critic’s and censor’s love-hate relationship with the irrational. Like
Pentheus, the Judge has divided loyalties that force him on the one hand to
censor the performance of the three actors and on the other to be tempted
by it. “I wanted to see your number at close quarters,” he tells the actors.
“Perhaps I had an obscure desire to take part.” And so a private performance
is arranged for him. Although Pentheus wants to ban Dionysus and his
followers, he nevertheless, masked as a woman, eavesdrops on the orgies
of the Bacchae. As a public figure, he is a moral censor; as a private person
he is a voyeur, thus incarnating both the superego and the id.
In a more disguised manner, Henrik Vogler in After the Rehearsal on the
one hand and Rakel and Anna on the other represent the fundamental
opposition between Pentheus and Dionysus, the ego and the id. Rakel’s
comment that as an actress, she was “the foremost one,” echoes verbatim
Agave’s pride of being the foremost maenad.
In After the Rehearsal, Pentheus is identified, not with the critic-spectator
as in The Ritual, but with the director-spectator. Whereas “the actor has to
expose himself under the lights,” Vogler says, “the director” – like another
Pentheus – “remains in the darkness of the auditorium” (B, 2001: 18). As a
director, Vogler “hates tumult, aggressions, outbursts.” He wants
quiet, order, and kindness. […] I am not spontaneous, impulsive, part of

the action. It only looks that way. If for one second I were to tear off my
mask and say what I felt or thought, you [actors] would all turn on me in
a rage, tear me apart and throw me out the window. (B, 2001: 35f.)
This is, of course, what happens to Pentheus, whose head is severed from
his body by his own mother, turning it into a torso. Rakel’s idea of theatre
is the very opposite of Vogler’s:
10 The word “mass” in the translation has here been replaced by the more correct ‘communion.’
11 An analysis of the latter is found in Törnqvist, 2001a: 25-42.
Theater is shit and squalor and horniness and tumult, confusion and the
blackest kind of mischief. I don’t believe your purity theory at all. It is
false and highly suspect. (B, 2001: 36)
It is evident that B has used the conflict between Pentheus and the Bacchae
to illustrate the relationship between the lonely director and the cast. This
dialectical relationship, which has a certain affinity to that between Apollo
and Dionysus in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, B seems to say, is needed
to make drama come to life. Rehearsing a play is a kind of intercourse
between director and actors, a confluence of opposites hopefully resulting
in a well-shaped child on opening night.
Anxious, as usual, to involve the audience in the action, B implied a
theatrum mundi by having the actors make some of their entrances from
behind the spectators. The obliteration of the dividing line between stage
and auditorium reached a climax when Dionysus toward the end revealed
himself as a god. He then suddenly stood “in the midst of the audience with
the sound of thunder and a flash of dazzling lightning dressed in a shining
white garment, with brilliant, white hair, white covered arms and hands,
on his face a white mask” (Iversen, 1998: 80).
At the end the chorus placed their thyrsus staffs on Semele’s altar much as
the characters in B’s production of A Dream Play sacrificed their attributes by
placing them on the writer’s desk. In the closing lines, describing how man’s
hope is constantly thwarted by the gods and how “nothing turns out the way
we had expected it,” the theme of this Strindberg drama seemed verbalised.
In his first diary note for Mourning Becomes Electra, the trilogy based
on Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Eugene O’Neill (in New York Herald Tribune June 19,
1932) asks himself: “Is it possible to get modern psychological approximation
of Greek sense of fate into such a play, which an intelligent audience of today,
possessed of no belief in gods or supernatural retribution, could accept and
be moved by?” If we substitute ‘production’ for O’Neill’s “play,” the descrip-
tion fits B’s stage production of The Bacchae about which Zern in Dagens
Nyheter said: “Nothing that I have seen of this almost seventy-eight-year
old director has gripped me so to the bone. He presents The Bacchae with
a self-evident authority that makes the cruel play speak directly to our
time.” The performance was generally lauded and most critics praised its
great emotional impact. To B himself it was “by far the best” of his three
productions of the play (Sjögren, 2002: 356).
13. August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata
In a Prologue written for the opening of his own Intimate Theatre in

Stockholm in 1907, Strindberg speaks of the journey that mankind must
undertake “from the Isle of the Living to the Isle of the Dead.” He was allud-
ing to Arnold Böcklin’s well-known paintings, copies of which at his request
had been placed at either side of the stage in this theatre (Falck, 1935: 53).
In his chamber play The Ghost Sonata (1907), 1 we witness a similar
journey. The house we see on the stage represents the House of Life which
at the end vanishes and is replaced by the Isle of the Dead. Along with the
Student, we gradually discover that the house which looks attractive on the
outside (Act I), inside is in poor shape (Act II). Life may not be what we had
expected but the Student is convinced that amor vincit omnia (Act III). Yet
even this proves to be an illusion. Like everyone else, the beloved Young
Lady is “sick at the source of life,” tainted by Original Sin. The attractive
house proves to be a mirage. Will the source be found in the after-life?
The play title alludes to the fact that if life on earth is a shadow life and
that we are all ‘ghosts’ – whereas those who appear as ghosts in the play,
although dead, are the truly ‘living.’ In quite another sense, the title alludes
to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor (Op. 31, No. 2), usually called
Der Sturm (The Tempest). In a letter to his German translator, Emil Schering,
Strindberg refers to it as the Gespenster (Ghost) sonata. He had used it in an
earlier play, Crimes and Crimes, to indicate the pangs of conscience afflicting
the protagonist. The subtitle of The Ghost Sonata, “Chamber Play Opus III,”
suggests that the author had a ‘musical’ structure in mind, in accordance
with his own definition of the term ‘chamber play’: “the concept of chamber
music transferred to drama. The intimate action, the highly significant
motif, the sophisticated treatment” (Strindberg, 1959: 19).
B’s interest in the play can be traced back to 1930. “When I was twelve,”
he writes, “I read The Ghost Sonata for the first time. I had bought it in a
second-hand bookshop and planned to stage it in my puppet theatre.” In
1941 he put on his first production of the play with a group of amateurs in
Stockholm who performed for children in a small theatre. But “one day we
began to play to grown-ups, beginning with The Ghost Sonata, which had
not been produced [in Sweden] since the days of the Old Intimate Theatre.”
The deficiencies of this production were clear to him a year later when he
1 The first edition carries this date but the play was not available in the bookshops until Jan.
23, 1908. For examinations of B’s productions of this play, see Törnqvist, 1973 and 2000.
witnessed Olof Molander‘s pioneering production at Dramaten. “What I

experienced that night in the theatre,” he declared later, “seemed to me
absolute and unattainable – and it seems so still” (B, 1953: 7).
In his second production of the play, at the huge stage of the City Theatre
in Malmö in 1954, he “consciously built on Molander’s production” (B in
Timm, 1994: 127). The proscenium opening was narrowed and the stage ex-
tended into the auditorium. When the grey curtain was raised the audience
sat in pitch-darkness and watched white clouds drift by on a transparent
scrim which remained during the whole evening, serving as a barely visible
gauze between stage and auditorium (Wahlund in Svenska Dagbladet). From
the beginning B in this way put the audience in what Strindberg would have
called “hypnosis in a state of awakeness,” facilitating their identification
with the Student, the dreamer of the play.
During the rehearsals B told his friend, the filmmaker and critic Vilgot
Sjöman (1963: 11), that as much as he loved the first two acts of the play he
detested the last one. “But it is my damned duty as a director to shape it
with exactly the same objectivity.”
B’s third Ghost Sonata was staged at Dramaten in 1973. The original plan
was that the play should be produced in the Paint Room of the theatre. Here
B would have had an auditorium approximating the size of Strindberg’s own
Intimate Theatre. But this plan had to be abandoned for security reasons.
Instead the play was staged on the Big Stage.
In Act I a beautiful white art nouveau apartment building – in agreement
with Strindberg’s prescription, in 1907, for a “modern façade” – was projected
on two high screens. However, when the Old Man and the Student watched
the house, they did not look at the projected house upstage. They looked in
the opposite direction, into the auditorium. In this way the modern house
was, as it were, placed not only on the stage but also in the auditorium. Since
the house represents the House of Life and its inhabitants stand for human-
ity, this arrangement which linked the audience with the characters on the
stage was highly meaningful. Appearing on either side of the proscenium
frame, the inhabitants of the house came to function as mediators between
the audience inside the House of Life and the characters out in the street.
Fundamental behind the production was the idea that “the Young Lady is
slowly turning into another Mummy.”2 To convey this idea the director had
the same actress play the roles of the Young Lady and the Mummy, mother
and daughter. Similarly, there was an outward resemblance between the Old
Man and the Student. The young people in this way seemed to incarnate an
2 B in an interview with Egil Törnqvist Jan. 5, 1973.

August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata 185
earlier stage in the old people’s lives and, conversely, they seemed destined
eventually to turn into guilt-laden old people, an idea Strindberg hints
at, not least through his age-oriented speaker labels. Taken together, the
male and the female couples thus presented a picture of the inevitable fate
inherent in the process of ageing.
In his fourth staging of The Ghost Sonata these correspondences were
not stressed. The two women were played by different actresses and the
two men did not look particularly alike – although the actors playing these
parts were actually father and son.
To underline that the whole play is a dream, or a nightmare, B re-
introduced the generic subtitle of the original production, “fantasy piece.”
He also chose to have the play performed, not on a big stage as in 1954 and
1973, but on the small one of the Paint Room surrounded by black velvet
curtains, with even fewer properties than before.
A number of mostly limited changes were made in the play text. The
verbal and visual references to Buddha were eliminated, since a modern
Swedish audience would have no affinity with Buddhism. So were the
references to the harp which miraculously begins to play by itself when
the Young Lady dies. Passages that would be hard to grasp by an audience
were omitted. This goes, for example, for the Old Man’s use of the word
“sportsman,”3 and for the odd way in which an acquaintance of his used to
pronounce the word window. 4 The text mentions sums which around 1907
were considerable. Thus the Old Man claims that the Student’s father had
robbed him of 17,000 crowns, and the Student a little later dreams of having
a private interest of 20.000 crowns a year. To equate Strindberg’s intended
audience with his own, B replaced the former amount with “a considerable
sum” and the latter with “a comfortable fortune.” Latin expressions like Cor
in aethere (heart in the ether/sky) and Sursum Corda (uplift your heart),
unintelligible to most spectators, were cut. Remarkable, not least in view
of the director’s re-introduction of the subtitle “fantasy piece,” was the
shortening of the following lines by the Student in Act III:
Where is beauty? In nature and in my mind when it’s in its Sunday best.
Where are faith and honor? In fairy tales and children’s plays. Where
does anything fulfil its promise? … In my imagination!
3 During rehearsals of his third production of the play, B declared that he had never under-
stood the significance of the “sportsman” reference (Törnqvist, 1973: 100); for an interpretation,
see Törnqvist, 2001b: 132f.
4 For the significance of the “window” passage, see Törnqvist, 2010: 111ff.
This was shortened to: “Where is beauty? Where does anything fulfill its
promise?” As a result the synchronisation between the Student’s implied
growing up and his becoming disillusioned was weakened.
While B in his earlier presentations of The Ghost Sonata had largely
abstained from music, in his last version he made incidental use throughout
the production, not of the Beethoven sonata or trio indicated by Strindberg,
but of Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936). The
percussion could be associated with the grumbling Old Man whose sur-
name, Hummel, recalls the word for bumble-bee in Swedish (humla). The
celesta – the word means ‘heavenly’ – could be linked with the Student,
who can see what others cannot see, and also with the celestial Milkmaid.
The Student’s report about the girl he had tried to save from the collapsing
house the preceding night was accompanied by an eerie fragment from
Bartók’s piece, giving a lyrical, dreamlike touch to his narration. As soon
as he discovered that the attempt had failed and that his arms were empty,
the music stopped. What seemed to have been either a visionary fantasy or
a result of the Student’s second sight found its aural equivalent in Bartók’s
music.
Even more than in B’s earlier productions of the play the Student was
the dreamer. This was indicated not by means of a gauze curtain, as in the
Malmö version, but by having him appear on the stage from the sunken
walkway in the middle of the sloping auditorium. Crawling onto the stage
in his dirtied clothes, he was not only escaping from the collapsed house
to be confronted with one that eventually would prove to be in a bad state.
He was also waking up from a nocturnal dream soon to be revivified on the
stage. And, born out of the ‘womb’ of the dark auditorium, he was entering
life as a little child, as an Everyman.
In the first act of the play, Strindberg calls for “the ground floor and
first floor façade of a modern apartment building [c. 1900].” As in 1973, a
black-and-white photo of an apartment house was projected on the black
velvet drapes framing the claustrophobic black box where the dream was
to be enacted. Representing the House of Life, this stately ‘fortress’ behind
which mankind – notably the well-to-do bourgeoisie – were hiding their
frailties, was a projected black-and-white replica of the so-called Red House
where Strindberg lived when he wrote The Ghost Sonata5 and which Olof
Molander had earlier recreated in his productions of the play. Pulled down
in 1969, this building was replaced by an apartment house where B came to
5 In the theatre program the list of characters and cast was significantly inscribed on the
faint image of the Red House in the background.
live. Whereas Molander’s spectators could still find the Red House in their
city, B’s had to locate it in their memory, as one of those buildings that were
pulled down to be replaced by a modern one; reality in this way strangely
seemed to imitate fiction. Inscribed in the lilac stage floor in front of the
house was a green rectangle. To those familiar with Stockholm this could
be seen as a stylised reproduction of the square, Karlaplan, where the Red
House was located. Symbolically, the combination lilac-green could be
seen as an indication of how the old generation in the play co-existed with
the young – as they always do in life, green representing not only youth
but also hope.
As in his 1973 production, B placed the House of Life both in the audito-
rium and on the stage, thereby creating both a teatrum mundi and a dizzy
dream effect. When the Old Man described the inhabitants of the house to
the Student, both of them looked into the auditorium. In Act II, the grand-
father clock to the left and the marble statue to the right indicated that the
spectators were inside the house entered by the Student-mediator. In Acts
II and III the upstage room, framed by Wagner pulls, had the appearance of
an inner stage with a theatrical quality characteristic of turn-of-the-century
upper-class interiors.
The street drinking-fountain to the right was this time placed below the
stage floor. From it, radiating with a mysterious green light, real water was
scooped up by the Milkmaid. A wholesome well – B’s film The Virgin Spring
came to mind – this fountain of life was obviously meant to correspond
to “the source of life” – the womb or Paradise before the Fall – mentioned
in Act III. To the left of this well was another hole in the ground, a sewer
into which the Caretaker’s Wife matter-of-factly emptied a bucket full of
faeces. The two contrasting holes anticipated the Student’s discovery in
Act III that the Young Lady is “sick at the source of life,” her representative
fate after the Fall.
The unmasking of the characters, especially of the Young Lady, was
synchronised with the withering of the hyacinths, an idea that was in B’s
mind already in 1973 but which was then abolished. While Strindberg calls
for hyacinths of various colours, B limited himself to the white – pure,
innocent – kind. In Act I the Young Lady was seen watering and softly
talking to the hyacinths in the window of her hyacinth room. Watching
her, the Old Man compared her to the blue hyacinth. The preference for
this colour appeared in Act III when the Student declared that he loved
above all the blue hyacinth, “the dewy-blue of fidelity.” Accordingly, B’s
Young Lady appeared in an elegant, light blue silk dress, with embroideries
around bosom and arms and a broad ‘chastity belt’ around the waist. In
Act II the hyacinths had already begun to wither. In Act III beautiful giant
white hyacinths were projected on the side walls corresponding to the
Student’s enamoured illusions about the nature of the Young Lady as an
ideal representative of (wo)mankind. Contrasting with these were the tiny,
withered, real hyacinths in the little box in front of her, smelling so badly
that she had to sprinkle herself with perfume around her neck and behind
to quench the odour.
The sickness of humanity was amply demonstrated in the characters. The
Dark Lady had a red boil on her cheek which she desperately tried to hide
behind her hand. The Posh Man constantly kept licking a red – syphilitic?
– sore below his mouth with his tongue. The Fiancée had an ear that was
bright red from the constant use of an ear trumpet and her laughter at
the most inopportune moments indicated her lack of wits. The Mummy’s
entangled hair bore witness of her inner confusion. The Old Man’s warped
mouth and slow patter suggested that he had suffered a stroke, motivat-
ing his awareness that his days were numbered. His bleeding, bandaged
hands indicated either psoriasis or stigmatisation. More closely, in the
context of the play, his blood-stained hands referred to his ‘murdering’ of
the Milkmaid and the Consul.6 Johansson wore a shoe that seemed consider-
ably longer than the other one; an oily, ingratiating figure, he showed, like
Hummel’s son, homosexual leanings. The Colonel’s iron corset was, as in
1973, revealed when the Old Man tore his blue, Swedish-looking uniform
open. The Young Lady showed self-inflicted scratches on her arm and, as
in 1973, blood around her abdomen, once her shiny, light-blue Amazon
‘armor’ was removed. Stiffly moving around as if in trance – a sleepwalker
in life – she showed at an early point “only the white” of her eyes “like a blind
person” (Barbara Villiger Heilig in Neue Zürcher Zeitung). Barbro Westling
in Aftonbladet summarised: “They all have ugly and unhealed wounds of
the life they have lived.”
As the outsider-narrator of a nightmarish dream, the Student appeared
throughout the performance in the same clothes: white shirt, light grey
dress, light grey shoes.7 The Old Man was in Act I hiding behind dark
6 To the well informed, the rags also seemed to allude to Strindberg who suffered from
psoriasis while writing the play (Steene, 2005: 751). In his prompt script B in addition provides
the Old Man with “rotten teeth” and a bad smell and describes him as “physically extremely
repellent.”
7 Although Strindberg does not indicate it, the Student is often on the stage provided with a
white student’s cap that immediately identifies him as a Swedish student. B always abstained
from the student’s cap, either because the habit of wearing one except on special occasions
ceased long ago in Sweden, or because it could connote an unwanted indication of social class.
glasses. He wore a black fur cap, a black, fur-edged coat – both status
symbols – and grey fingerless woollen gloves. In his wheelchair he kept his
cane and a worn bag, containing the sweets with which he tried to catch his
victims. “All the others walk around in thin clothes,” Zern noted in Dagens
Nyheter, but “he is sitting in his winter coat protecting himself against inner
cold. Through his dark Beckett glasses he observes the world conspiringly.”
To those who had read the theatre program his crutches and his coat-tails
could be seen as indications that he was “a bat of the vampire genus.”
In Act II the Old Man appeared in a black top hat; when removed, it
showed a bald head. He now wore dark-green clothes, including a waistcoat
with a black-green, frog-like pattern. The Milkmaid wore a grey dress with a
grey-and-white striped apron in Act I, later a long, white shroud-like petti-
coat. The Young Lady wore a light grey riding habit in Act I, in Act II replaced
by a light-blue dress, pearl-embroidered above, at once a star-studded sky
and a shiny armour. The Mummy’s entangled grey hair around a head that
twitched like that of a parrot seemed part of her grey negligee turning
red below as if she was being drained of her life-blood. Her voice subtly
fluctuated between anguished humility and passionate condemnation.
Bengtsson, the servant, appeared like an anachronism in an 18th century
red costume, with a huge black bow-tie, his patriotic medal proudly fastened
to his breast.
A suggestive visual correspondence occurred when the Colonel’s
handling of his monocle was mimicked by the Dead Consul’s handling of
his. When the Old Man was vampirically gripping the Student’s hand, the
Student’s anguish was echoed in a silent cry à la Munch by the Dark Lady,
who herself had been made pregnant by the Posh Man.
The few comical touches centred on Johansson, the Old Man’s servant,
who, combining self-importance with ingratiation, walked around with
a briefcase out of which he eventually produced, not documents or even
books, but a pocket-flask which he evidently regularly sipped. When he
told the Student that the Old Man was reputed to have been in Hamburg,
he laughed insinuatingly and waved his grey bowler hat like a cabaretier;
the implication was obviously that the Old Man had been a customer of
Reeperbahn, the famous red light district of that city.
Entering the house in Act II to take part in the ghost supper, Strindberg’s
Old Man verbally unmasks the Colonel before the guests arrive. As already
noted, B had him do it also physically. In the prompt script it says that he
“tears off the Colonel’s moustache and false teeth, forces him down on his
knees, tears his uniform open, and holds his head against the mirror.” A
characteristic know-thyself sequence by B.
For the Mummy’s first entrance, the prompt script prescribes: “The cup-
board door is slowly opened and the Mummy patters out, slightly trotting.
Harmed by the light, she shrinks from it, leaps up to the Old Man, pulls
at his wig, leaps back, turns around, hands under her chin.” As a result of
her long “imprisonment” in the wardrobe, it further states, she “has the
peculiarity that she never looks at the one she talks to except for short,
intensive moments.” Guilt-laden, her glances turn inwards – as do those
of her daughter.
As in 1973, B indicated a tender relationship between the Mummy and the
Colonel. He had the Mummy eavesdrop when the Colonel was stripped by
the Old Man, thereby strengthening her motivation to pronounce judgement
on the Old Man later. But unlike the situation in 1973 the Mummy and the
Colonel were not united at the end. They stood in frozen positions isolated
from each other and from the dead Young Lady in front of them. Whether
living or dead, the director seemed to say, we are ultimately alone.
The prelude to the ghost supper was this time more elaborate and the
supper – during which neither tea nor biscuits were served – included one
more guest: the Dark Lady. Hiding her boil with one hand, she reached out
the other to be kissed by the Colonel – in vain. The Mummy similarly turned
away from her. Placed at the right end of the row of chairs, half turned-away
from the others, she was collectively rejected.
The drowning of the Milkmaid was repeated pantomimically when she
unexpectedly appeared, from the entrance below the auditorium, writhing
in front of the Old Man who was standing on his wheelchair, surrounded by
the Beggars, like a king surrounded by his courtiers. With his cane he tried
to repress the Milkmaid, that is, the traumatic memory of his “murder” of
her. She then placed herself in the painful position of the crucified Christ
next to the grandfather clock in anticipation of the revengeful murder of
the Old Man.
Once Bengtsson had revealed the Old Man’s hidden crime, the latter
tried to escape from the death penalty that had been pronounced on him
but he was prevented from doing so by the guests. Having run the gauntlet
along them, he finally sought support from Johansson who received him
in his arms – only to carry him into the closet, where the Milkmaid was
waiting to put the rope around his neck. All the Old Man’s victims in this
way took their revenge. Johansson picked up the Old Man’s cane, waved it
like a cabaretier to indicate that, now freed from his slavery, he had taken
his master’s place.
At the end of Act II Strindberg’s Student recites from “The Song of the
Sun,” with its moral that “man must reap what he has sown,” in the context
above all a comment on the Old Man’s death. The recital is accompanied
by the Young Lady’s harp playing. In 1973 the Student recited the lines by
heart, apparently from the red book he had in his hands. This time he was
reading the lines, it says in the production script, “from the Young Lady’s
book.” The red book he has earlier pressed to his heart is in other words now
explicitly ascribed to her.
Strindberg’s Act III opens as follows:
young lady. Sing now, sing for my flowers!

student. Is this your soul’s flower?
young lady. The one and only. Do you love the hyacinth?
In the performance the act opened with the Student writing in his black
notebook. The lines were now:
young lady. Read now aloud what you have written.

student. I have written about your flowers but above all about the
hyacinth which I believe is your soul’s flower.
young lady. Do you too love the hyacinth?
The Student’s lyrical-psychological appraisal of the hyacinth that follows

and that had been spoken spontaneously in B’s earlier productions, was
this time read aloud from the Student’s notebook. The highly romantic
description was in other words not the result of an impulsive outburst but
was, more credibly, a writer’s contemplated way of expressing himself.
In Act III the Cook, a short,8 fat and dirty woman, more repulsive than
terrifying, held the brown soya bottle with the Japanese “scorpion” letters
in her blood-stained hand. At her second appearance, she was accompanied
by Bengtsson, he too in grey proletarian clothing, brushing one of the Young
Lady’s riding-boots. The two were “an aged Jean and an old Kristin” (Ring in
Svenska Dagbladet) serving the Young Lady who was, as it were, a descend-
ant of Miss Julie. The plans that were abolished in 1973 to have their “You
suck the strength out of us, and we out of you” reverberate were now put into
effect. The line was echoed as if by an anonymous, mumbling proletariat.
The thematic focus was on lost virginity, linking the street drinking-
fountain, the marble statue of a young half-naked woman (Eve after the
Fall), the Milkmaid killed by the Old Man, and the Young Lady ‘killed’ by
the Student. In Act II a tapestry was projected on the side walls showing a
8 Not the “big” woman the Student speaks of.

lancer on horseback piercing a unicorn, the traditional symbol of virginity,

with his lance, not only a reference to sexual penetration but also a reference
to the killings just mentioned. By showing the Milkmaid as unwantedly
pregnant9 like the Dark Lady and, earlier, the Mummy; by having the Old
Man contaminate the marble statue when he placed a mark of blood on
its stomach; and by having the Young Lady, in Act III, violently beat her
stomach, B linked the key line of the play – the reference to the sickness at
the source of life – to the origin of us all: the womb, as well as to Original
Sin. When the Student despairingly asked “where is virginity to be found,”
he made an obscene gesture toward the Young Lady’s womb, whereupon
he brutally took hold of her head as he continued: “To think that the most
beautiful flowers are so poisonous, are the most poisonous.” Having been
unmasked by the Student, the Young Lady crawled out of her dress “like a
butterfly out of the chrysalis” (Zern), revealing her petticoat, stained by
blood around the womb, and her body stigmatised by red scars around
the neck.
The Student’s closing speech in the text was divided up between him
and the Mummy. In the production script the end reads:
bengtsson in with the death screen which he opens up and puts in front of
the young lady. He then sits down on a chair, his head and arms hanging
down. The mummy and the colonel have stood up.
milkmaid becomes visible.
young lady up behind the screen, groping and disfigured. Dies in cramp.
student takes the dead girl in his arms. Sleep, you beautiful, unhappy,
innocent creature who bear no blame for your suffering, sleep without
dreams, and when you awaken again … may you be greeted by a sun that
does not burn, in a house without dust, by friends without faults, by a
love without flaw.
Intends to leave. Finds the young lady’s book. Reads it with a new insight.
student tears the book apart and throws it away. Leaves the stage but
remains visible as in the opening.
mummy and colonel up. They take away the screen and bend over the
dead girl..
9 This directorial addition was probably inserted to indicate that Bengtsson’s obscure “she
[the Milkmaid] had witnessed a crime he [the Old man] feared would be discovered” would
refer to the fact that the Old Man is the cause of the girl’s pregnancy and that he lured her “out
onto the ice” in Hamburg to get rid both of her and the expected child.
mummy. Poor little child, child of this world of illusion, guilt, suffering
and death; this world of endless change, disappointment and pain. May
the Lord of Heaven have mercy on you on your journey …
In 1973 B had the Student sceptically recite the lines from “The Song of the
Sun” at the end of the play. In the production script he is even more negative
when he has the Student throw away the book from which he has earlier
recited “The Song of the Sun,” the book he has earlier held to his heart. In
this performance he eliminated the book altogether.
Instead he brought the Milkmaid once more onto the stage and focussed
on the connection between her and the Young Lady. As the Young Lady was
standing in her petticoat behind the death screen with its Japanese letters
meaning “life, death, eternity,”10 the Milkmaid, almost identically dressed in
what looked like a shroud, rolled onto the stage through the black curtain at
the back and joined the Young Lady, now lying on the floor. As the Mummy
approached them for the final intercession, her use of the intimate singular
pronoun (du) made it clear that the two women now represented one and
the same child (of man). The text reference to “the Lord of Heaven” was
changed into the more Christian-sounding “God the Father,” a dubious
concession to a largely nominally Christian audience.
The Young Lady was then carried out by four men wearing lilac suits and
top hats, with faces hidden behind gauze. The Milkmaid, who had earlier
been seen several times in the position of the crucified Christ, now appeared
alone on the stage – seen by the Student standing in the auditorium as a
member of the audience – performing a final, upward-striving dance. This
was B’s non-verbal substitute for the Student’s prayer to Buddha in the play
text that the Young Lady should re-awaken in heaven. The message seemed
clear. The death of the Young Lady meant a separation of body and soul,
the former left on the stage in the form of a piece of clothing doomed to
annihilation, the latter, in the Student’s hope – an important qualification
– blessed with survival. No Toten-Insel, no angelic harp, no “Song of the Sun”
at the end as in the play text, not even a secular family reunion as in 1973.
And yet consolation, be it subjective, in the final vision of the spiritualised
Milkmaid, now identified with the dead Young Lady, “born” by the Student
and the audience together. His hope, their hope.
10 Information from scenographer Göran Wassberg.

B’s fourth and last production of The Ghost Sonata was not hailed as one
of the director’s most memorable stagings.11 But most critics considered it
a coherent, fluid, and deeply meaningful presentation. As usual the actors
playing the Old Man and the Mummy, two thankful roles, were especially
praised, while the actors incarnating the Student and the Young Lady, two
less rewarding parts, received less attention. Several critics pointed out the
puppet-like nature of the characters, leaving it open whether the Old Man,
B, God, or Fate was the master puppeteer (Larsén in Sydsvenska Dagbladet).
The bare stage caused Zern in Dagens Nyheter to think of an empty rehearsal
room, B’s favourite ‘stage,’ whereas Sörenson in Expressen reminded the
reader that this was a production by a filmmaker; to her the performance,
understood as the Student’s nightmare, was “a horror film from the period
of the silent film.” There were guest performances in Oslo, Copenhagen,
and New York.
11 B himself regarded it as the best of his four Ghost Sonata productions. “That third movement
is generally seen as a diminuendo,” he somewhat enigmatically told Sjögren (2002: 341), “and
has always been done that way but to me it is a crescendo.”
14. Friedrich von Schiller, Mary Stuart
It was hardly a surprise that B chose a drama about women for his next-
to-last stage production, least of all since he now felt that he had found
two ideal actresses for the two main roles (Steene, 2005: 756). Both as a
film and as a stage director he had often concerned himself with relations,
often rivalry, between women. But in this case it was about two royalties
in the 16th century and that made a difference. For while rivalry between
women involves universal and timeless problems, rivalry between royal-
ties has political implications as well. Besides, the view of royalty has
changed drastically since the 16th century. In that period, as in Schiller’s
play reflecting it, royalties were generally considered to have their rank
by divine right. This partly explains Mary’s strong attachment to religion.
It explains why in her view only a person of equal status, i.e. another
royalty, could judge her. And it explains why Elizabeth, who could surmise
how historically irrevocable an order of death penalty would be, found
it so diff icult to condemn her cousin to death. Such a death sentence
would after all affect her own kind. When it was nevertheless put into
effect, it was a revolutionary example of equality before the law that was
followed by capital punishments of royalties during the irreligious French
Revolution. Today it is difficult to sense the enormous impact a belief in
royalty by divine right had, not only in the 16th century, but even to some
extent in 1800 when Schiller’s Mary Stuart was first performed. This belief
definitely belongs to a bygone era. When presenting the play to secularised
audiences like the one in Sweden, B had to take this into account. They
might admire the title character for her courage and firmness, but they
would have trouble sharing her conviction of her own judicially superior
position.
Schiller’s drama deals with the short period between the death sentence
of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, issued by the members of the English
Parliament, Queen Elizabeth I’s signing of this sentence, and the execu-
tion of it. The f ive-act tragedy oscillates between Fotheringhay Castle
in northern England where Mary is held prisoner (Acts I, III and V) and
Westminster Palace in London, where Elizabeth and the Parliament are
seated. Many characters and events agree more or less with historical
circumstances, but here and there Schiller has adjusted historical reality to
the demands of dramatic art. Most obvious in this respect is his inclusion
of a meeting between the two queens in the climactic Act III; in reality
the two never met. Another example is the inclusion in the play of the
unhistorical, but for the plot exceedingly important, Mortimer. A third

example is the involvement of the Cardinal of Lotharingia in Mary’s case;
the Cardinal was by this time already dead. Central to the theme of the
play is that Schiller
chose to make his Mary guilty of complicity in the plot to murder Darn-
ley [her second husband] but innocent in the Babington plot [aiming at
assassinating Elizabeth and placing Mary on the English throne] – both
matters of historical dispute – so that he could make her accept her
death as an atonement for her earlier guilt. (Lesley Sharpe in Schiller,
2008: xx)
Historical drama is primarily national drama. Although the execution

of Mary Stuart would be known to many Swedes, the circumstances
leading to it would not. To help the understanding of the play articles
on the historical situation around the two queens were included in the
theatre program. In the play itself B eliminated many of the political
references, aware that they would be a hindrance to an audience largely
unfamiliar with Tudor history. A guide line justifying the large omissions
in the production script was obviously to play down the political and
religious conflict in favour of the personal one, to stress the controversy
between two women rather than the one between two queens.1 This was a
rather natural choice for a director who had always let personal conflicts
prevail over social and political ones. Moreover, it made the two queens
more relevant as identification objects to an audience familiar only with
powerless monarchs.
When Mary was executed she was 45, Elizabeth 53. Schiller’s queens, the
dramatist suggested, should appear much younger on stage, Mary about 25,
Elizabeth about 30. The ages of B’s actresses were much closer to those of
the historical figures; his Mary was 42, his Elizabeth 45. The fact that they
were of about the same age strengthened their erotic rivalry.
B divided Schiller’s five acts into two parts and eleven scenes. The loca-
tion shifted between Westminster Palace in London, the seat of Queen
Elizabeth and the Parliament, and Fotheringhay Castle in northern England
where Mary was held prisoner.
1 Cf. Schiller’s advice to Goethe, reprinted in the theatre program, that the roles of Elizabeth
and Mary should be cast by women in the mistress category and not in the queen category.
Goethe was head of the Weimar Court Theatre, where the play had its world premiere.
Friedrich von Schiller, Mary Stuart 197
The bare grey stage, designed by Göran Wassberg, was flanked by two
high grey walls placed askew on either side of it. The vertical predominance,
Ring in Svenska Dagbladet wrote, gave associations to a church. Horizontally
the stage was divided into a higher background and a lower foreground,
two low steps separating the two areas. This arrangement enabled smooth
and swift scene shifts; the few properties needed could easily be brought in
and out by the black-dressed stage hands. The arrangement also enabled
tableaux vivant scenes to be visualised in the background while verbalised
acting took place in the foreground.
This concerned especially the two queens. When Elizabeth was acting in
the foreground, Mary was usually seen as a silent witness sometimes in the
background, sometimes in darkness in the foreground left. Similarly, when
Mary was acting in the foreground, Elizabeth was usually seen as a silent
witness in the background. This arrangement visualised a fundamental
idea behind the production: that the two were constantly on each other’s
mind, Elizabeth as the person ultimately responsible for Mary’s fate, and
Mary as a vivid part of Elizabeth’s conscience.
After the black curtain containing portraits and short descriptions of the
two queens had been raised, the whole ensemble appeared on the stage,
accompanied by fanfares, bowing to the audience – as they would at the
end of a performance. Here it was a meta-theatrical device in anticipa-
tion of what was to come. In the middle of the ensemble the chief roles,
Mary and Elizabeth, appeared side by side, both in varying shades of royal
red – as if the dream of a united Britain was visualised. This was a dream
shared by many. But there was no unanimity as to who of the two would
be head of this united kingdom. This was symbolically indicated in B’s
little prelude when Mary removed her royal red gown, revealed her black
dress underneath it and moved into the darkness left, symbolising the
Fotheringhay prison. Elizabeth, on the other hand, remained in what now
represented the stateroom in Westminster, where she devoted herself to
merry-making. After some music, singing, and dancing the play proper
opened with Schiller’s Act II.2: the visit of the French delegation asking,
on behalf of their King, for Elizabeth’s hand. Why did B not stick to the
author’s sequence, opening the play with Mary in the Fotheringhay prison?
Undoubtedly because given the fact that the play ends with Elizabeth
deserted by everyone, it would be dramatically effective to open it with
a strongly contrasting situation: Elizabeth as the mighty ruler of a strong
nation, surrounded by loyal subjects.
Seated on a simple wooden chair representing her throne, Elizabeth
addressed the French ambassador, Lord Aubespine, in his own language:
Comte! Je plains
ces nobles seigneurs
que leur zèle galant a conduits ici
à travers la mer de ne pas retrouver
chez moi la splendeur de Saint Germain.
She then continued to address him in Swedish, that is, what was supposed
to be her own English language. With Schiller the complete dialogue is
in German, including the quoted lines. Why did B change these lines and
some other polite phrases in this scene into French, understandable only
to part of his audience? French is the language of diplomacy. Diplomacy
serves to retain smooth relations with foreign powers. This means obligatory
pretence. By using French B’s Elizabeth was formally being exceedingly
obliging – to compensate for her temperance with regard to the issue at
hand: the marriage to the French Dauphin. Pretence was also what she
needed as head of the nation in relation to Mary.
When Elizabeth had declared that the Dauphin might hope for her
hand and Aubespine had answered that he desired more than a hope, the
sequence continued:
elizabeth leans forward. What does he wish?

She pulls a ring from her finger and contemplates it.
The four men forming the French delegation turn to each other, laughing.
elizabeth turns head frontally. A queen has nothing
that separates her from a common woman!
Turns head back. Stretches out her right arm to aubine.
See here the symbol of our duty to serve.
Gets up, goes to aubine who, like everyone, kneels.
She pulls another ring from her finger. Give his Royal Highness this ring.
She hands him the ring.
A seemingly neutral question by the Queen – “What does he wish?” – con-

tained erotic undertones through her tone of voice and the reaction of the
Frenchmen. These undertones spilt over to her following remark even if it
was directed not to Aubine but to the audience – being a general, ‘demo-
cratic’ statement. When the red-dressed ministers and advisors behind
Elizabeth knelt to mark the significance of the deliverance of the ring, a row
of upright soldiers in grey uniforms behind them became visible. Hidden
by the diplomacy was the military power.
In Scene 2 the audience witnessed the locations of the two queens

simultaneously. In the foreground was the Fotheringhay prison, in the
background a room in Westminster. While Mary and her faithful nurse
Hanna, in simple black dresses,2 were complaining to their warder Paulet
about the unjust treatment of Mary, Elizabeth’s confidants Burleigh and
Talbot were seen on either side of her empty high chair in the middle behind
the a long table, a hint of Elizabeth’s “absence” with regard to Mary’s fate;3
Leicester was leaning nonchalantly against the right wall, while Elizabeth
behind him was talking to her ladies in waiting. All were in royal red.
Elizabeth’s vacillation between Burleigh who, acting like a prosecutor,
argued for capital punishment, and Talbot who acted like a defender, was
clarified in the next scene. Here what was merely background in the former
scene became the central setting and the characters came alive and began
to talk. Elizabeth now took her seat in her high chair centre and listened to
the alternatives with regard to Mary suggested by the three men around her:
immediate execution (Burleigh), postponement of it (Talbot), and execution
if there was an attempt to set Mary free (Leicester).
The plot gets underway when Mortimer, Paulet’s nephew, turns up in
Fotheringhay and tells Mary how he, brought up as a Puritan, during his
journey to Italy and France has converted to Catholicism. Enchanted by the
visual and aural richness of the catholic cathedrals he had discovered how
beauty and religion could come together. His enchantment with “the music
drifting down from paradise,” a line deleted by B, was restored in the form
of soft choir background singing accompanying Mortimer’s enthusiastic
description of the catholic churches, so different from “the somber Puritan
prayer-houses” he had been brought up with.
Mortimer’s reason for seeing Mary is to tell her about his plan to liberate
her. She counters him by saying that only one person could do this: Leicester.
It seems a mystery, as Mortimer points out, why Mary should see Leicester
of all people who had voted for her death as the one to do this. Schiller here
seems to allude to the historical circumstance that Elizabeth had suggested
Leicester as a suitable match for Mary before she married Darnley; perhaps
also to the possibility that Elizabeth could have been ignorant of Leicester’s
voting for Mary’s execution. But few if any in the audience would be aware
2 Schiller has Mary enter “in a veil holding a crucifix.” The production script has her enter
quite realistically “in a jumper, limping, supported by a cane” a stage direction neglected in the
performance.
3 During the talks leading to Mary’s death penalty the stately chair under the canopy
remained empty.
of these circumstances; and the historical surveys in theatre program did

not provide any help in this matter.
In the next scene, Mortimer pretended to Elizabeth that his conversion
to Catholicism was necessary to enable him to spy on those in France who
were planning a coup d’état in England. She believed him and asked him
in veiled terms to see to it that Mary would be killed:
elizabeth. Well, good luck! I must hide

my gratefulness. Her hand touches mortimer’s calf
and caresses him up to his shoulder. Be not sorry about that!
Most confidential and strongest are
the ties made in greatest secrecy.
The erotic gesture was B’s addition. The clandestine murder would, it
seemed, be clandestinely sexually rewarded.
Leicester who had been Elizabeth’s favourite – the Swedish translation
calls him älskare (lover) – reproaches her for considering marriage with the
French Dauphin who had never seen her and thus only loved “her reputation”
– whereas he, Leicester, loved Elizabeth herself; this was a dubious truth by
someone trained in stratagems. Elizabeth countered by saying that as head
of a nation she could not, like Mary, “listen to the voice of the heart.” B had
her at this moment push Leicester down and, her dress spread out, hierarchi-
cally sit on him for a moment of sexual satisfaction. As if accustomed to
this behaviour on the part of the Queen, three ladies in waiting appeared
and hid the couple from the environment by holding up a red cover behind
them. Making shrewd use of the situation, Leicester, when Elizabeth was
having her orgasm, suggested that she and Mary meet in secret. “You could
then for the first time enjoy your victory.” Sexual mission accomplished,
both stood up and regarded themselves in the mirror just brought in by a
lady in waiting. As soon as Elizabeth had left, Leicester approached this lady
and began to caress her breast. While Elizabeth’s caressing of Mortimer
demonstrated how sexuality was used to convey a particular purpose, her
intercourse with Leicester was motivated by a complex mix of “Debauchery.
Genuine and pretended,” as it says in the production script.
In the middle of the play Schiller places his climax, the unhistorical
meeting between the two queens, in the park of Fotheringhay with “a wide
view in the distance.” B opened the scene with a projection of driving clouds
in the background against an ominously red sky – symbols of freedom, since
the clouds are free to move from England to her beloved France. Hanna was
standing alone upstage looking at the sky in the background. As Mary was
slowly coming up from the background a female voice was heard singing a
Scottish folk song about love. Informed that Elizabeth was hunting in the
vicinity and might appear any moment, Mary was taken by surprise and
found herself between fear and hope. Was Elizabeth’s sudden appearance
a sign of reconciliation?
B had Elizabeth come up from the background followed by Leicester.
In her hunting pants, high boots, and with her riding weal she looked
masculine and authoritarian. Pretending that the meeting was accidental,
she remained standing until Mary had approached her and knelt to her,
obviously in the hope that Elizabeth had come to reconcile herself with
her cousin. Elizabeth addressed her to begin with respectfully as “Lady
Mary,” then when the climate between them had deteriorated more formally
as “Lady Stuart.” She increased her haughtiness by taunting the Catholic
Church. Pointing to Mary with her weal she cruelly remarked that Mary
owed her reputation of beauty simply to the fact that she was a “common
woman.”4 After this humiliation Mary could no longer repress her hatred:
mary. That I am human, Stands up from her crawling position. elizabeth

turns her back to her. I have never concealed.
I have despised false semblance.
But you have everything to fear if one day
the virtuous disguise is torn away
revealing all your wild debauchery.
Close to elizabeth. You did not inherit virtue
from your mother. Hand to womb. Moves away
from elizabeth, with outstretched arm.
Everyone knows what kind of virtue leicester
takes hold of her from behind. caused Anne Boleyn
elizabeth strikes with her weal. to loose her life!5
After this crushing accusation, Leicester took Elizabeth away, as Mary

shouted after them:
England’s throne
was polluted by the daughter of a whore.
4 In the source text (Schiller, 2010: III.6): “Es kostet nichts, die allgemeine Schönheit / Zu sein,
als die gemeine sein für alle!”
5 Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, was executed on charges of
adultery and incest. According to the historical consensus she was not wholly innocent.
If right and truth existed, you would

kneel to me, and I would be the monarch.
Laughing triumphantly, Mary lay down on her back, raised her bare legs
and spread her arms. Was it the expression of someone who at last had
been able to let off steam? Was it the mock-position of a whore? Or was it a
gesture of hubris that would presumably soon be punished?6 The sky had
suddenly turned pitch-black and when Mary cried out “This was the moment
of triumph!” distant thunder could be heard. Mary had with this “triumph”
effectuated what she would prevent: the death sentence over herself.
Back in the prison Mary was visited by Mortimer who declared that a
group of conspirators were ready to liberate her. B had him kiss Mary and
she returned his kiss by putting her arm around his back; after all, he was
to be her liberator. But when he became more insistent, she released herself
from him. Suddenly O’Kelly, in black, one of the conspirators, entered to tell
Mortimer that Elizabeth had been attacked. A big, ominously red sun was
at this moment projected on the backdrop. When O’Kelly said “Our queen
must die,”7 Mortimer believed he meant Elizabeth whereas he meant Mary.
Only later did he – artificially but effectively in dramatic terms – reveal
that Elizabeth had survived the attack. The sequence was accompanied
by soft organ music and showed Mary and Elizabeth, as in the prelude,
slowly approaching from the background at the head of the royal court,
while in the foreground the plotters threading necklaces – with, presum-
ably, miniature portraits of Mary, as talismans – over each other’s heads.
Mary and Elizabeth were at this moment seen right behind them in a spot
covering all four, the two queens turned away from each other. Mortimer’s
“If Mary may not live, I don’t want to live” was followed by a loud thunder
clap concluding Part One.
Leicester had for years been Elizabeth’s lover. But since she prevents
him from reaching his goal, the English throne, he considers the possibility
of doing so through Mary. Like Mortimer he is highly involved with both
women. But whereas Mortimer is actively pursuing his goal, Leicester is
from a distance observing if Mortimer’s plan to kill Elizabeth and liber-
ate Mary will work out and be of use to himself. When the conspiracy is
6 The word ‘presumably’ indicates the suspense the audience would sense were this a fictitious
drama. But since Mary Stuart is a historical play, we know the outcome if we know the historical
facts. The suspense in the play and in performances of it is therefore to the knowledgeable part
of the audience not so much what will happen as rather how will it happen (Pütz, 1970: 15).
7 A quid pro quo leading to a reversal when it is clarified whom “queen” refers to.
revealed, Schiller’s Mortimer commits suicide. Released of a disturbing

witness Leicester pretends ignorance of the conspiracy and saves his skin.
While the two men were conspiring together B significantly dressed
them identically in royal red; after the plot had been discovered Mortimer
was in black, whereas Leicester, always smoothly non-committal, retained
his red dress. B made Leicester more villainous by having Mortimer not
commit suicide but be killed at his order. As soon as the two conspirators
had separated, Leicester told the Officer of the Queen’s Guard: “Take care
of the traitor to the realm, Sir Mortimer!” Four soldiers in black uniforms
entered and seized Mortimer, whereupon the Officer, in royal red, knifed
him to death. To Elizabeth Leicester later pretended that he had discovered
Mortimer’s plan to liberate Mary and kill Elizabeth. “When I had him im-
prisoned, he took his life,” B’s Leicester lied to the Queen. When Burleigh,
always the sceptical realist, doubted the truth of Leicester’s story, Leicester
called for the Officer to confirm it. Mortimer, the Officer said, had cursed
“our queen” and then drawn his knife. “It happened instantly /and he fell
dead to the floor.” This said, the Officer was immediately sent away by
Leicester. The Officer’s vague description of Mortimer’s end had fulfilled
its purpose: to verify Leicester’s (false) version of Mortimer’s death. That
Leicester so easily could get away with his lie was due to the fact that – in
this play full of plots – he had a hold on Elizabeth after having revealed
to her and Burleigh that he was aware that she had clandestinely asked
Mortimer to have Mary assassinated.
Burleigh, Elizabeth‘s and above all Protestant England’s faithful protector,
always insisted on capital punishment for Mary. B presented him as the
conscientious and energetic civil servant, always with his portfolio contain-
ing relevant documents in his hand. After Davison, as Secretary of State and
Burleigh’s personal secretary, had brought in a high white table with Mary’s
still unsigned death sentence on it, Burleigh appeared to the left of it, Talbot
to the right. They were identically dressed and carried black staffs in their
hands, symbols of impending death. Repeating their earlier contrasting
views, the former pleaded for immediate execution, the latter warned that
a dead Mary would be more dangerous than a Mary kept alive. From the
beginning of the scene, Elizabeth, contemplating, moved back and forth in
the foreground, indicating her vacillation. So did Mary, worrying about the
outcome, in the background. Mirroring each other, they demonstrated how
preoccupied the potential executioner and her victim were with each other
at this moment. The audience had reason to ask: Who suffered the most?
Left alone, Elizabeth recalled how Mary had dared mock before Leicester.
“My lover, my love she has stolen,” she sighed. It was at this moment that B
had her sign the fatal document, an indication that rather than concerns
for her country or even for her own life it was personal humiliation and
jealousy that made her decide.8 To calm down she then sat down and smoked
a cigarille. Telling Davison that she had signed the death sentence but that
“a paper does not decide everything, a name / doesn’t need to kill,” she took
the non-committal attitude of a Pilate and handed the responsibility over
to her confused and desperate subject:
davison. […] Let me be excused

from serving you in this horrible matter!
elizabeth. Do your official duty! Turns around, leaves.
Now Burleigh appeared and, eager to have the matter settled quickly, tore
the fatal document from Davison, releasing him of a heavy responsibility but
at the same time promoting a decision that the Queen might not recognise
as hers – as indeed she does at the end of the play.
Discordant music, followed by tolling of a church bell bridged the scene
to the following, set in the Fotheringhay prison. A black-dressed man with
a white staff, a figure of death seen earlier behind Mary, entered from right,
followed by a procession of black-dressed, mourning women, headed by
Mary.9
The black-dressed man could also be seen as an incarnation of all those
mourning Mary’s fate; Melvil, her most faithful male friend, admonished
Hanna: “let us accompany her / as support and staff on her way to death!”
Hanna and Margaret Kurl took a black gown off Mary and revealed a dark-
red velvet dress underneath it, a big cross hanging on her breast, her arms
now spread out in cross-form. Mary herself took off her black hood, exposing
8 Schiller too has Elizabeth sign Mary’s death sentence primarily for private reasons. B
followed the author in this but stressed, more than him, the erotic rivalry. It is questionable
whether this helped cure what may seem a flaw in the play: that the humiliation in Fotheringhay
Park was witnessed by no outsider, was in other words not publicly known, and therefore seems
a rather poor reason for Elizabeth’s signing of the death sentence. The historical reason for the
signing was quite different: the conviction of a court of 36 noblemen that Mary had sanctioned
an attempted assassination of Elizabeth.
9 Schiller has Mary in this scene (V.6) enter “dressed in white, as if for a feast.” This was tradi-
tionally the colour of mourning in France at the time and also the colour that Mary favoured. But
to B’s audience the significance of a white dress would have been unintelligible. The man with
a pale face, black clothing, and white staff heading a procession mourning someone sentenced
to death, recalls the situation close to the end of The Seventh Seal, where Death with his scythe
leads the six “sentenced” victims as black silhouettes to the after-life.
her short white hair. This undressing in imitatio Christi was an echo of what
happened at the real execution.10
After Margaret Kurl had disclosed that her husband, once Mary’s secre-
tary, had witnessed falsely and that the death sentence therefore was unjust,
Mary took leave of the maids that had been allowed her in the prison. She
gave Hanna the napkin in which her “tears had been woven” when she was
embroidering it. “With this you shall bind my eyes / when the time comes.” 11
When Mary was denied a Catholic priest, Melvil fulfilled the role of
confessor; he gave her the bread and the wine and God’s forgiveness for
her grave sin toward Darnley.12 After this black-dressed people crowded
in from all sides. Only Elizabeth and Mary in their red dresses, which in
the context seemed more a colour of blood than of royalty, stood out from
the rest. During the rest of the scene Elizabeth stood completely still in the
background by the right wall, her right hand raised against it, an ominous
mene, mene, tekel gesture: “you have been weighed on the scales and found
wanting” (Daniel 5: 25-28). Burleigh, who had come to hear Mary‘s last
wishes, had by this time taken over the white staff. Three times he struck
the floor with it.13
On her way to the scaffold Mary passed by Leicester. She ran to him,
embraced him, kissed him, took a few steps back and said: “Farewell and
if you can be happy! / Kneel before Elizabeth! / May your reward not be
a punishment! Farewell!” Clearly moved at seeing Leicester, she fell down
and was helped up by Melvil and Hanna. Together they slowly disappeared
down in the black background. Mary’s forgiveness for the man who had
betrayed her was a crushing experience for Leicester. Alone on the stage
Schiller’s Leicester in a soliloquy voices his deep remorse:
10 Before Mary was beheaded her outer garments were removed, unveiling a velvet petticoat
and a pair of sleeves in crimson-brown, the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic
Church. When the executioner held her head aloft and declared, “God save the Queen,” the
auburn tresses in his hand turned out to be a wig and the decapitated head exposed Mary’s
own short grey hair.
11 The napkin recalls the Veil of Veronica on which Christ’s face appeared. Before being
executed Mary was blindfolded by Hanna Kennedy with a white veil embroidered in gold, knelt
down on the cushion in front of the block, on which she positioned her head, stretched out her
arms and said: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum” (Into thy hands, O Lord, I
commend my spirit).
12 “Here lies the crux of the drama,” Stahl (1954: 109) notes. “Maria, innocent of the crime of
which she stands accused and for which she is about to be executed, accepts her fate as a token
that God has forgiven her real crime.”
13 In the context this might recall the threefold crying of the cock corresponding to Peter’s
threefold denial of Christ (Mat. 26: 75), the Commander’s threefold knocking on Don JuanAn-
tony’s door in Molière’s Don Juan before sending him to hell.
[…] Why does no abyss

Open to swallow this reproach to nature!
[…]
She goes from me, before my very eyes
Changing into an angel, leaving me
To inescapable damnation’s howls!
B cut these melodramatic lines and showed instead by action, light, and
sound their essential message:
leicester moves to the foreground, a spot on his pale face in frontal

position.
He takes off his glove from his left hand that holds a miniature portrait
of mary. I am still alive! Can I endure that?
Turns around, goes upstage. Low drum beats and bangs. When he sees
elizabeth still
standing by the right wall, he returns front, kneels down, opens a lid in
the floor
and looks down. Strong light from below on his face.
Are they already at it?
Now I hear voices… I must flee
from this house of death.
The drum beats grow increasingly loud.
He closes the lid. Darkness.
The spot on Leicester’s face seemed like a visual mirror of Mary’s decapitated
head once the axe had fallen. Realistically Leicester was opening the lid to
the lit area below where the scaffold was being prepared. Symbolically he
was opening it to an abyss: the hell in store for him.
The last scene, set in Elizabeth’s room, opened with a bell striking five.
Elizabeth appeared in a red nightgown. Behind her a big grey chest, the
size of a coffin.14 In front of the chest a small table and a diminutive chair,
both grey. Standing by the chest – with the stair-like furniture in front of
it not unlike a scaffold – Elizabeth was waiting to hear the verdict of the
commission. Talbot entered, informing her that Kurl’s decisive evidence
had been false, a piece of information which should cause the Queen, she
said, to call for a new trial. When Davison a little later told her that the fatal
14 Mary’s body was embalmed and left in a lead coffin until her burial several months later
(Fraser, 1994: 541).
document was in Burleigh’s hands, Elizabeth feared that this would have
sealed the matter. This was confirmed when Burleigh entered and declared
that the capital punishment had indeed been effectuated. Elizabeth now rid
herself of all responsibility by bluntly declaring that she had judged Mary’s
case just and mercifully, but that Burleigh had “thwarted her mercy.” She
tore off the seal from his breast, dropped it on the floor and banished him
“from her sight forever.” Burleigh raised his portfolio in protest and let it
fall to the floor with all the papers in it spreading around the floor. After
which he himself dropped down on all fours and began to cry. Soldiers in
black uniforms entered and dragged both Burleigh, now without portfolio,
and Davison out. Sacrificing her faithful servants Elizabeth had managed
to keep up appearance – except to the audience – and save her glory in the
interest both of herself and the state.
When Talbot, whose advice that the Queen should judge Mary mercifully
had been neglected, declared that he wished to resign his post as advisor,
Elizabeth called for Leicester, her only remaining friend. Preparing to meet
him, she loosened her hair, sat down on the chest and moved her hands
from her breast to her womb. After a knocking on the door right, the voice
of the Officer announced: “Lord Leicester sends his apologies. / He is on
his way to France.” Music reminiscent of a boat whistle turning into a siren
was heard. The lilac light on the walls increased, then “strong sunset light”
(production script) streamed from left, delineating the shadow of Elizabeth’s
head on the right wall. Slowly she turned and entered barefoot the chest-
cum-scaffold and looked out of the window. Meanwhile (the ghost of) Mary,
her face in strong white light, entered in her red velvet dress downstage right
and kneeled. At this moment her shadow on the right wall mingled with
Elizabeth’s. She looked at the cross in her hands, put it down on the floor,
bent forward, spread her arms to form a cross and let her head suddenly
drop as if under the axe as the sound of the siren stopped. Sudden darkness.
The reception was on the whole very favourable. Ring in Svenska Dag-
bladet called it “a beautiful staging about eros and agape” and “an exquisite
mixture of subtle aesthetics, will, and self-evident power.” Schwartz in
Expressen was impressed by Koroly’s colourful costumes, closer to “Schiller’s
19th century than English 16th century.” Zern in Dagens Nyheter found B’s
attempt to make a passion play out of Schiller’s drama impressive but he
lacked the danger in Leicester’s part that is usually his contribution to
Elizabeth’s dilemma. Several critics felt that B had turned the theatre into
a cathedral but they disagreed in their evaluation of this device. There was
a guest performance of the production in New York.
15. Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts
Ibsen’s Gengangere has always, for want of a better word, been entitled
Ghosts in English. The play also has a subtitle, A Domestic Drama in Three
Acts, which highlights the author’s questioning of the family as an institu-
tion – as he had done in A Doll’s House two years earlier.
Once infamous, now famous and frequently performed, Ghosts consists
of a network of gradual revelations. Returning from Paris to his parental
home in Norway and doomed to a premature death through syphilis, Mrs
Alving’s son Osvald learns that he has inherited his illness from his pro-
miscuous, since long deceased father and that Mrs Alving’s maid, Regine,
with whom he wants to start a relationship, is actually his half-sister. The
orphanage that Mrs Alving has just erected in memory of her late husband
burns. Carpenter Engstrand, once paid off to play the role of Regine’s father,
persuades the naïve Pastor Manders that it is Manders’ carelessness that has
caused the fire – whereas it is obviously Engstrand himself who has done
so. Engstrand promises to keep the reason for the fire secret, thereby saving
Manders’ reputation. In return for this Manders promises to help Engstrand
start “a seaman’s home” entitled Court Chamberlain Alving’s Memorial
Home to replace the burned orphanage. Yet, since the seaman’s home is
Engstrand’s euphemism for a brothel, the new “Captain Alving’s Memorial
Home” ironically becomes a home, not for orphans, but for those who beget
them – promiscuous men and women – and in this sense a home in the
image of Alving. Having discovered that Alving is her real father and that
a relationship with her half-brother Osvald therefore is impossible, Regine
leaves, presumably to take up a job as a prostitute in Engstrand’s brothel.
Left alone with his mother, Osvald hands her a mortal dose of morphine
and asks her to give it to him when the illness reduces him to a helpless
child – which soon occurs. Leaning over her now demented son, Mrs Alving
hesitates to give him “the last service.” There the play ends.
Usually considered a prime example of naturalistic drama, Ghosts strictly
adheres to the unities of time and place. Set in the same room for all the
three acts, the play begins shortly before noon, we may assume, and ends at
sunrise the next day. The place of action is “mrs Alving’s country estate by
a large fjord in western Norway,” reached by steamer from the middle-sized
town in the area, where Manders apparently lives. The period of action is
not explicitly mentioned but we may assume that it coincides with time
when the play was published: 1880.
As often with Ibsen, the stage is divided into three marked areas: two
rooms, contrasting with one another, and the exterior beyond them. The
symbolic tri-partition shows an interior (culture), an exterior (nature) and
an area in between (the conservatory), more or less corresponding to the
play’s ideological contrast between a socio-religious, duty-bound view of
life and a hedonistic faith in life for life’s sake, in joie de vivre, a key concept
in the play.
B’s production of Ghosts – his last stage production – was based on his
own translation and adaption of Ibsen’s play. In the following, I shall discuss
the adaptation and the performance in turn.
The theatre program had on its cover Edvard Munch’s etching Tête-à-tête
(1905), showing a black male face and a red-haired female face turned both
toward and away from each other, suggesting that the ambiguous mother-
son relationship in the play stood central in the production. In a postscript
in the program B reveals that it was the first time he had translated a play.
The incentive to do so and to adapt the text came, he says, from reading
Ibsen’s drama in the light of Strindberg’s domestic drama The Pelican,1
originally called “Sömngångare” (Sleepwalkers), a title very similar to Ibsen’s
Gengangere. After a few remarks on Ghosts, the postscript continues:
After a long professional life, characterized by a passion which the

Germans ironically used to call Werktreue [faithfulness to the text] I
have picked up the big steel scissors and cut the Ibsenean iron corset to
pieces, while leaving the basic motifs untouched.
[…] A violent discussion about so-called free love I have done away with.
Pastor Manders is no longer a clerical caricature. He is an anguished
and emotionally confused human being. Both Osvald and Regine have
received more space. Carpenter Engstrand [...] remains the way he is and
Mrs Alving is […] both victim and hangman, at once sophisticated liar
and merciless teller of the truth [...].
In an interview he declared that he had “rewritten about 30 percent” of the

play (Sjögren, 2002: 245).
In his production of Ghosts at the Big Stage2 B divided Ibsen’s three-act
play into two parts, separated by an intermission. Part One corresponded
1 B staged this play twice and was preparing a radio version to be broadcast in March 2002,
shortly after the premiere of Ghosts.
2 The production was originally designed for the Paint Room, B told Sjögren (2002: 246) but
when it appeared that the Big Stage lacked a program the production was moved there.
Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts 211
to Ibsen’s Act I, Part Two to Acts II-III. For his abbreviated description of
the setting of the play B stipulates in his adaptation:
A country estate by the fjord. Salon, living room, dining room and hall.
Opulent, tasteful, well preserved. A large window facing rain, mist and
bare fruit trees.
We later learn that the country estate is located a six-hour train journey
from Oslo; since the Norwegian capital changed its name from Kristiania
to Oslo in 1925, we can conclude that the action takes place after this year.
The bare trees combined with the rain help to indicate that it is autumn.
Ibsen’s three spatial areas are increased to five, including the exterior.
The setting in the performance was rather different from that suggested
in the adaptation. Practically all the visible space consisted of a living room,
corresponding to Ibsen’s garden room, with upstage, centre, a tall window
showing bare trees in the mist outside. To the left of it a library with rows
of elegant old books could be glimpsed through a half-open door. On the
forestage, centre, a broken-down gate, signalling decay. By having Engstrand
enter the house from the auditorium through this gate and by having the
characters face the audience when they later discovered that the orphanage
was on fire, B suggested that front garden and orphanage were located in
the auditorium. The symbol of the life-lie was in this way, as it were, made
commune bonum.
With a handy visual exposition the audience is in B’s adaptation im-
mediately introduced to all the characters as in a tableau vivant:
mrs helene alving is sitting at her desk bent over a big book. […] regine
is in the dining room, busily polishing silver spoons. osvald is sleeping
on the sofa in the living room. Carpenter jacob engstrand is standing
in the hall. […] Pastor gabriel manders, still outside with portfolio and
umbrella, is soon to enter.
Each of them is placed in a separate space, an indication, perhaps, of their

isolation. Attributes and activities help to characterise them.
In the performance only the two women were seen in the opening, Mrs
Alving in the library reading her red book and Regine in the dining room
polishing a silver pot. Engstrand appeared a little later, climbing up from the
auditorium through the decayed gate, a black shadow from the underworld
covering his head and shoulders with a dark coat against the heavy rain.
Manders appeared later, as did Osvald when the revolving stage showed
him lying on the sofa in the living room, a position recalling the habitual
one of his father.
Ibsen’s Manders and Alving lack a Christian name. And his characters
address each other formally with “Pastor Manders,” “Mrs Alving,” etc. B’s
characters were more informal. Pastor Manders was appropriately given
the Christian name of Archangel Gabriel, and Mrs Alving called her late
husband Erik, the name of B’s clergyman father – an indication that Osvald,
the artist, had something in common with the artistic son of this conserva-
tive Swedish priest.3
The intimate forms of address concern also the pronouns. Unlike Eng-
lish, both Norwegian and Swedish know a formal and an informal way
of addressing. In Norwegian, the formal address is De, in Swedish it is Ni.
The informal address is in both languages du. Ibsen’s Manders addresses
Regine with a formal De, B’s with an informal du. And while Ibsen’s Mrs
Alving and Manders, despite their long and once intimate friendship, seem
surprisingly formal in their way of addressing each other – an aspect of “the
art of sweeping under the rug”4 – B’s two characters addressed each other
with their Christian names.
As usual with B, the production combined realistic traits with theatrical
ones. When Mrs Alving was seen reading outside the library left and Regine
and Engstrand were talking in the living room next to it, there was no wall
separating her from them; the spectators were simply asked to imagine
a wall between them. And when Osvald and Regine at the end of Part
One were seen in an erotic game, the spectators were, similarly, asked to
imagine a wall between the dining room where this game took place and the
living room where Mrs Alving and Manders found themselves. The mirror
downstage in front of which first Regine, then Manders made themselves
presentable was likewise imaginary; only from their mimicry could the
spectators grasp its existence.
Both the scenery, in a style between empire and art nouveau, and the
costumes were relatively monochrome. The elegant furniture – sofa, table,
and chairs – were in light brown wood, covered by green velvet.5 The soft,
dark-green, curtain-like walls of the high-ceilinged room, topped by a row
3 B’s paternal family circumstances were by this time well-known to many Swedes and
the critics often saw Osvald’s rage and desperation in terms of young Ingmar’s reaction to his
paternal environment. Cf. B’s remark in the prompt script: “The B family and the façade. I Know
Because I Was There.”
4 This is the title of the second part of B’s TV serial Scenes from a Marriage.
5 The sofa was a replica of the one in Edvard Munch’s painting The Room of the Aunts from
1874 (Steene, 2009: 48).
of lamps, made the setting look theatrical, especially since a tall birch with
green leaves painted on the left wall made the wall look like a wing. The
painted green birch in Part One – green for hope – strongly contrasted
with the ‘real’ bare trees outside the window. In Part Two, the birch had
lost its leaves and was moreover surrounded by walls turned almost black
in which a black cross pattern could vaguely be discerned. Painted on the
same left wall behind the birch tree was a huge classical column with the
lower part draped in a cloth. Presumably indicating the monument about
to be inaugurated as well as serving as a visual extension of the enacted
period and thereby universalising the theme of the play, it matched the
life-size sculpture of a semi-nude woman to the right. Together with the
grandfather clock left, this sculpture was a quotation from B’s third and
fourth productions of The Ghost Sonata. For those who were aware of this
piece of auto-intertextuality, it was tempting to regard the sculpture in
Ghosts as a visual link between Regine and young Mrs Alving, especially
since the latter, as we have seen, had indicated that the two had a close
affinity.
Both in the drama text and in the adaptation little is said about the
characters’ outward appearance. The costumes in the performance sug-
gested the time of Ibsen’s text, the 1880s, rather than that of the action,
after 1925 – a pretty façade and at the same time the outward indication of
“age-old, rotten ideas” – I quote Mrs Alving – “that have us in their grip.”
The parallel between Regine and Mrs Alving was suggested in Act I in
their long dresses, similar in cut but slightly different in their material
and in their shades of red. The sharp red vertical streaks in Mrs Alving’s
dress recalled not only regal splendour but also open wounds – connecting
them with the red wound B placed on Osvald’s head. Pastor Manders was
dressed in violet from top to toe, a colour that in Christian symbolism
indicates penitence and is especially connected with the Passion Week.
Osvald, being an artist, was more informal in his grey trousers and sweater.
In Act II Mrs Alving appeared in a long, simple ash-violet dress, in colour
a hybrid of the two men’s costumes and in tune with the weather outside.
In the final act, playing at night, she wore a violet nightgown, Osvald light
blue striped pyjamas.
Ibsen’s Mrs Alving has a lot of books on her table. After merely glancing
at some of them, Manders reproaches her for her reading. B had him pick
up the single book mentioned in his text, apparently the one Mrs Alving
was reading when the play opened. Adding the name of the author and the
title of the book – it concerned a certain Malene Didrichsen’s The Modern
Woman – B had Manders quote from it:
The women of today are indoctrinated as daughters, sisters, wives and

mothers. They are rarely educated according to their capabilities. And
they are thwarted in carrying out their profession. Mentally embittered,
they are the mothers of the next generation. What will the consequences
be?
Manders commented: “Old nagging and grumbling that has no relevance in

today’s equal society.” While his comment must have seemed ridiculous to
an audience when applied to the 1920s, it was a provocation when related
to their own situation. Obliquely it raised the question: How equal was the
Swedish society in 2002? Was Manders’ reaction still tenable?6
As a matter of fact both the name of the writer and the title of the book
had been invented by B to disguise the fact that the quotation was almost
verbatim taken from one of Ibsen’s notes for Ghosts (Ibsen, 1932: 136). In this
devious way B amusingly mustered the playwright himself to support Mrs
Alving in her controversy with Manders, although exceedingly few in the
audience would be aware of it.
While passing over this theft in silence, B in his postscript admits that
he has stolen “a few lines from The Pelican and The Ghost Sonata.” In The
Pelican the Son accuses his Mother of fundamental hypocrisy, an accusation
echoed when B’s Osvald told his mother that her life had been a “gigantic
lie.” In The Ghost Sonata, the Student, having entered the attractive house
visualised on the stage, discovers that it is rotten to the core; similarly, when
returning to his attractive parental home, B’s Osvald, quoting the Student,
found that “there is something very rotten here.”
Indicative of his illness – he called himself a “living dead” – Osvald was
deathly pale. For the ugly wound on his head no explanation was given in
the play. To Steene (2009: 50) it was “the outer sign of [his] destroyed brain,
the syphilitic heritage from his father.” By extension one might see it as a
symbolic crown of thorns; Osvald is, after all, an innocent victim. Yet not
until the other characters knew about Osvald’s fatal illness, could they see
the significance of the wound. Even then they never asked how it had come
about. Was it the director’s way of indicating the human environment’s
indifference to suffering, an expansion of Osvald’s accusation that his
mother is indifferent to him, unable to love? When he momentarily put on
a red clown’s nose it was a grim mocking of his heavy drinking and a stoic
way of laughing at his own condition. For insiders it was also a reference
6 Cf. Johan’s conservative views, as opposed to Marianne’s, on female emancipation after

their visit to a production of A Doll’s House in Scenes from a Marriage.
to Rank in B’s A Doll’s House, appearing at the fancy-dress ball with a red
clown’s nose, he too doomed to death through inherited syphilis.
“As a metaphor,” B notes in the postscript, Osvald’s illness is “unsurpass-
able.” Syphilis can be either congenital, transmitted from the mother before
birth, or acquired through contact with an infected person, usually through
sexual intercourse. Ibsen has the Parisian doctor claim that in Osvald’s
case the biblical saying that “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the
children” was applicable, a euphemistic paraphrase for the fact that Osvald
had inherited his syphilis from his father. B was even more explicit when
he had Osvald tell the doctor in Paris that he had never “been together with
either woman or man” – note the updated reference to homosexuality.
In Ibsen’s time it was scandalous to mention syphilis by its right name,
and so his characters do not do so. In the postscript B notes that he has
“retained Ibsen’s decision never to mention the name of the mortal ill-
ness.” However, B’s reason – he had the doctor say that Osvald suffered
from “a blood sickness” and that he “was infected already in the womb”
– was another one. As several critics have observed, the vague description
of the illness has the advantage that it applies not only to syphilis but
also to AIDS, an illness which in 2002 was comparable to syphilis in
the 1880s or 1920s in the sense that it was considered both shameful,
incurable, and mortal. Here again B proved anxious to make the play
as threateningly relevant to his audience as it was to Ibsen’s in his time.
That the symptoms may not agree very well with those of AIDS is of little
importance compared to the “unsurpassable” metaphoric value of the
unnamed illness.
Unlike Ibsen, B had Mrs Alving tell Manders that her husband had been
not only debauched but also “cruel”:
mrs alving. –yes, he [Alving] became seriously ill. But that didn’t prevent
him! I, too, became – Grows silent.
Shortly after she got married Mrs Alving fled to Manders. Ibsen’s explana-
tion is vague: she felt “utterly miserable.” B pointed rather to her love for
Manders; according to him she had cried: “here I am, take me, take me.”
Manders avertingly referred to her duty to return to her family. “You were
afraid,” B’s Mrs Alving says, “because you knew I was ill.” This can only mean
that Manders suspected Mrs Alving had been infected by her husband’s
syphilis and was afraid of being infected by her.
Ibsen briefly tells us that Mrs Alving’s loveless marriage was arranged
by her mother and two aunts. B tells a different story in his text:
mrs alving. […] I wanted to get away from home. Mother and father
were very keen. And Erik was so lovable. For my father who was nearly
bankrupt it was a splendid move. I never dared to ask myself what I was
really thinking or wishing. Smiles. I had suddenly been given a major role.
In Ibsen’s text Manders has in the past been a friend both of Alving and
Mrs. But after she had confessed her love for him, he chose to keep away
from the Alvings altogether. B elaborated on this. Manders and Alving, his
parson memorised, became friends at the university. A poor theologian
of simple origin, Manders admired the intelligent, distinguished Alv-
ing, whose parents, moreover, had helped him financially to complete
his studies. Manders’ favourable view of Alving had to do with these
circumstances.
B also established a more balanced distribution of guilt between the
parents. While Ibsen merely suggests that Alving’s sexual aberrations may
have been a consequence of his feeling unloved by his wife, B had Mrs
Alving reveal that after the birth of the illegitimate Regine, she closed her
bedroom door to her husband. Denied sexual intercourse with his wife,
Alving had to seek it elsewhere.
It is Ibsen’s Engstrand who, presumably deliberately, causes the fire of the
orphanage in a complicated attempt to snare Manders for his own seaman’s
home. Unlike Ibsen, who indicates that Engstrand deliberately sets fire to
the orphanage, B made Osvald the incendiary.7 He had Osvald eavesdrop
when Mrs Alving revealed to Manders: “All the horrible things concerning
chamberlain Alving will soon be obliterated. All that is nauseating, evil,
threatening–-I don’t know, there are no words. I never talk about this.” This
gave his Osvald the idea to set fire to the orphanage which his mother had
called “a monument to a lie.”8
When the orphanage burned all the characters gathered on the forestage.
The red fire was reflected in their faces as they looked straight into the
auditorium where the imaginary orphanage was placed. Manders, thinking
of the sad consequences for his reputation this might lead to, kneeled and
cried: “God, my God why have you forsaken me!” Highly ironical in his
7 B’s inspiration, as far as Osvald is concerned, came from The Pelican which ends with the
Son setting fire to his own home, thereby killing his vampire mother, his sister and himself.
8 The explanations regarding the source of the f ire between Engstrand and Manders, B
found, are “far-fetched. It is much more likely that it is Osvald’s rage and illness and constant
drunkenness [...] that make him set fire to it” (Sjögren, 2002: 242). B was disappointed that the
critics did not notice that it was Osvald with his sooty clothes who was the real incendiary (ibid.:
231).
case, the outcry was very relevant for Osvald, seen behind him in a similar
position. Manders’ Christian outcry was followed by Osvald’s wordless
primal cry.
Joining the main action to the subplot, Ibsen’s Mrs Alving draws a parallel
between herself and Engstrand; just as he has ‘bought’ his wife Johanne
for a sum of money, so she has ‘bought’ the rich and socially prominent
Alving. Both transactions are the result of mechanisms characteristic of
a hypocritical society. B further embroidered on the similarity between
the two seemingly so different marriages. Thus he had Regine recall how
Engstrand, always drunk, “shouted and scolded and kicked” his wife,
whereupon Engstrand reminded her how Johanne had wished to leave him.
This picture of the marriage was in stark contrast to what Engstrand told
Manders about it. Once married to Johanne, he said, he had led a respectable
life and eventually “there arose a kind of love” between man and wife. This is
the inveterate liar Engstrand’s description at a moment when he was trying
to regain Manders’ confidence. Engstrand was clearly offering a prettified
picture of reality – as Mrs Alving had done for years.
Already in the early scene with Manders, Regine demonstrated her will
to trade her sexual attractiveness. In hindsight one sensed that offering
to become Mander’s housemaid, she might repeat the fate of her mother
Johanne, made pregnant by her landlord Alving. One reason why B much
more than Ibsen stressed Manders’ erotic interest in Regine was that it
helped confirm his erotic interest in Mrs Alving in the past, an attitude
indicated by her but denied by Manders himself. Much later Mrs Alving
declared not only that she had an invincible desire to kiss Manders; with B
she actually did it. Whereupon Manders, after returning the kiss, frightened
backed away with the words: “No, no, dear Helene. No, it is impossible.
Pardon me, but – it is impossible.” Again the situation served to revivify
what had happened between them in the past. Shortly after this Regine
and Osvald were glimpsed romping around on the sofa in the background.
Manders, about to leave, told Mrs Alving that they should not exaggerate
the importance of what they had just witnessed. “It was perhaps merely
an innocent occurrence.” Repeating his words about Alving’s cuddling
with Johanne, he referred to Regine’s and Osvald’s sexual game on the sofa
at the end of Act II. His statement was immediately defied as Regine and
Osvald were again seen continuing their sex game. When Mrs Alving later
asked Regine if she and Osvald slept together, she answered: “I want to.
But he can’t.” Osvald was not impotent. He was aware that he could infect
Regine with his mortal illness. Manders and Osvald, seemingly alike in
their restrictiveness, were actually opposites.
Unlike Ibsen, B suggested a parallel between Regine and Mrs Alving.

An early hint of this was given when Manders mistakenly addressed the
young attractive Regine as “Helene.” Toward the end the parallel was fully
developed when Mrs Alving told Regine:
This is how you’re thinking, my pretty Regine: I marry Osvald and then
we live a few years in Paris. When Osvald’s mother is old and tired, we
move back home and Regine Alving takes care of Rosengård. She manages
the house, since she has the power. She builds and expands. The only
decay is Osvald. It suits her rather well. Everyone thinks she is caring for
her husband in an exemplary way and that the marriage is fairly happy.
She then takes a lover. But in greatest secrecy. For reputation is more
important than passion, isn’t it.
Her after-thought “I was probably speaking mostly about myself” clinched

the parallel. Regine had been portrayed as a young Mrs Alving, Mrs Alving
as an ageing Regine.9
With B ghosts stood not merely, as with Ibsen, for outworn, reactionary
ideas and the hypocrisy that goes with them. His Osvald claimed that those
who nourish such ideas get so impregnated with them that they actually
turn into ghosts. “It is you who are the ghost,” he told his mother toward the
end. The emphasis was less on ominous heritage and more on the imprint
this heritage has on its inheritors.
Ibsen’s play ends with a question mark: Will Mrs Alving give Osvald
the mortal tablets or will she not? Will she kill her own son? This is the
provocative question the dramatist hands over to the recipient.
B’s ending was different. In his adaptation it reads:
The sun shines brightly through the mist. The room is filled with blinding,
mobile morning light. mrs alving stands by the window.
osvald. Mother.
mrs alving. Yes. Pause. Yes, Osvald. Turns around.
osvald. Give me the sun.
Pause.
mrs alving. What are you saying?
9 Cf. the opening of the prompt script where it is said about Regine’s polishing of the silver
spoons that they “once will become hers (dream!).” The relationship was akin to that of the
Young Lady and the Mummy in B’s 1973 production of The Ghost Sonata.
osvald. You must give me the sun.

mrs alving whispers. Osvald. Tries to catch his glance. Osvald!
osvald. The sun. I want the sun. Collapsing on the floor, he takes off his
clothes as if it is unbearably hot. Holding him mrs alving helps him.
mrs alving. Look at me! Osvald! Don’t you recognize me?
osvald smiling, expressionless. You must give me the sun.
mrs alving at first sits completely still, with osvald in her arms. She then
gets hold of the morphine tablets and fetches a glass of wine from the table.
Sits down again with osvald in her arms and feeds him. In between she
lets him drink. He opens his mouth and swallows obediently, like a child.
In the performance, the sun rose, poppy-like and “cherry-red” like the
soft velvet curtains which in Osvald’s fantasy were a soothing image for
the softening of his brain. Sensing the warm sunlight, Osvald took off his
pyjamas and rolled naked over to centre-stage. With his face turned to
the sun, his back to the audience, he stretched out his left hand toward
Mrs Alving and said in a clear voice: “Mother, give me the sun.” She then
stretched out her right hand to meet his. He handed her the morphine
tablets. And to Pärt’s piano chords, with the indication “peacefully, in an
elevated and introspective manner,” she fed him the tablets and the wine.
Abstaining from Ibsen’s provocative open ending, B had Mrs Alving
perform euthanasia, an ending hardly less provocative, especially since
it took place within a Christian framework. Osvald’s nakedness returned
him to the child he once was in the remembrance of his mother. When
Mrs Alving treated him to wine and tablets, as he rested in her arms, the
situation combined that of a mother feeding her baby, the handing out of
wafers and wine at the Holy Communion, and the pietà.
Osvald had earlier told his mother: “what is this life you gave me? I don’t
want it! You can take it back!” – a cruel paraphrase of Job’s 1:21: “Naked
came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither.” B’s
final emblematic tableau, Roland Lysell in Upsala Nya Tidning observed,
recalled Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel, where the Creator’s
hand touches that of his creation, Adam, “but with the opposite effect.”
It also recalled his Pietà, where Virgin Mary in expression and position
remembers infant Jesus as she holds the dead Christ in her arms. In an-
other sense it recalled Edvard Munch’s Vampire in which (com)passion is
combined with aggression, the woman’s blood-red hair coils covering the
man’s head – like a deadly wound.
B’s performance opened with a loud, ominous bang in complete darkness.
Retrospectively this could be understood as the death of Osvald or the
shock this meant to Mrs Alving. When the lights came up, brittle piano
chords from Arvo Pärt’s Für Aline in B minor were heard. Strongly lit, in
an immobile, frontal position downstage, Mrs Alving was seen in a long
black dress and dark-blue apron, looking vacantly into the auditorium.
Behind her Regine was sitting in semi-darkness, a shadowy, hardly visible
figure, she too immobile, frozen in her action of polishing a silver pot.
The significance of this prologue was clear only in retrospect. Actually an
epilogue, it showed a Mrs Alving after she had killed her son. This explains
why she was dressed as if in mourning – with an apron, in cut identical
with the one worn by Regine. Regine having left at the end, Mrs Alving
was taking over her tasks herself; Regine’s shadowy figure behind her was
now her double. With Osvald dead and Manders and Engstrand gone, Mrs
Alving was now completely alone, burying herself among the memories at
her country estate.
Once we see the significance of the prologue-epilogue, we realise that
the whole play, as presented by B, in a sense took place inside Mrs Alv-
ing’s mind – in remembrance of things past. Ibsen’s objective drama had
been transformed into a dream play in which time and place were floating
concepts. Interesting in this connection was that the grandfather clock
showed 5 o’clock both at the beginning and at the end of the performance.
Moving from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. – the hands of the clock actually did move
for a while – B’s fictive playing time was a few hours shorter than Ibsen’s.
Symbolically, the fact that the hands of the clock were in the same position
at beginning and end seemed to indicate that time had virtually stood still
or was non-existent – as it may seem to be when one recollects.
Since euthanasia is still a highly controversial subject, the spectators
were bound to react in various ways to Mrs Alving’s action at the end. The
crucial question here was: Did B’s Mrs Alving truly love her son? Osvald
had expressed doubt about this. Some spectators might in line with this
argue that her decision to help her son die rested primarily on her promise
to him; viewed in this way, Mrs Alving in the ending remained duty-bound,
unliberated from the ghosts of the past. Other spectators might reject Os-
vald’s reproach and see Mrs Alving’s action as one of loving compassion, a
visualisation of how the mother finally dared to give her doomed son “the
helping hand” he had asked for. Unlike Ibsen, B opted for closure rather
than openness in the ending with regard to Mrs Alving’s action. But the
motivation for her action was left open.
“When the morning light at last arrives,” Barbro Westling in Aftonbladet
observed, “Mrs Alving has lost everything and she turns her vacant glance
to the auditorium.” The audience were back where they began.
Few Swedish reviewers objected to B’s adaptation in which several of

them signalled autobiographical elements. Several British critics, on the
other hand, found B’s version too explicit in its introduction of “clarity at
the expense of tension.” By general consent the actress playing the part of
Mrs Alving carried the production. There were guest performances in Oslo,
London, and New York.
16. The Serious Game
Each stage production is unique. Yet given the fact that one and the same
director was responsible for all productions examined here, it is evident that
they all had much in common. By way of summary I shall in this concluding
chapter highlight some of B’s recurrent devices. Taken together they will
indicate his directorial profile.
Despite B’s early claim that he would never “stage a play against the
writer’s intentions,” there are many suggestions that the productions exam-
ined here frequently deviated from what can be assumed to be the intention
of the writer, a sign that B’s theory did not match his practice – even when
the statement was made as early as the 1960s.
Take the question of deletions. Early on there were deletions in virtually
all B’s productions, more substantial, of course, in the longer plays than in
the short plays. Of the plays dealt with here, King Lear and Peer Gynt were
cut with about one third, Hamlet and The Winter’s Tale with about half.
Deletions may have many causes. When the three Helmer children in
A Doll’s House were reduced to one, the reduction signified an updating of
the play to a present-day, divorce-minded audience. When references to
Buddha in The Ghost Sonata were omitted the reason was that the audience
had no relation to Buddhism.
In Peer Gynt the story about the young man who cut off his finger to
escape military service was deleted without any significant loss to the
play and minor characters like the Memnon Statue and the Lean Man were
omitted without any real harm to it. The metaphoric pig story in Long Day’s
Journey could be cut without any great detriment to the plot and many of
the literary allusions in the play which were alien to the audience were
eliminated. More dubious was the deletion of the Prologue in A Dream Play
since it meant a significant restructuring of the play.
Also very short omissions can be of importance. An example is the deletion,
in King Lear, of Edmund’s failed attempt to withdraw his order to have Lear
and Cordelia executed; it made B’s Edmund more cruel than Shakespeare’s.
Changes could concern the dramatis personae. Characters were some-
times added: Klara in Miss Julie, Thalatta in The Bacchae. They could appear
in new guises. In King Lear Shakespeare’s Gentleman became a Scribe, his
Officer a Physician. In The Bacchae Euripides’ First Messenger became
a Sheperd. Changes could concern the dialogue. In Ghosts about thirty
percent of the play was rewritten. In A Dolls House some additions served
to support Helmer, the representative male. A problematic change in The
Misanthrope concerned Alceste’s poem which was replaced by a very dif-

ferent kind of poem by Silesius.
An unusual part of B’s direction concerned the fact that the theatre
building itself could play an important part in the productions. In A Doll’s
House and Ghosts the scenery revealed that both plays were set in about
the same period as the art nouveau building where they were staged; the
audience found itself, as it were, in the same surroundings as the characters.
This experience was even more apparent in The Winter’s Tale, where the
scenery in the latter part of the performance was a replica of Dramaten’s
foyer.
Ever since the 1950s, B was in favour of an empty or nearly empty stage.
One reason for this was that he found “every stagehand […], every use of
the curtain, every raising and lowering of settings disturbing moments”
(Sjögren, 1968: 311f.). Another reason was indicated in his description of his
third Ghost Sonata production: “We have few properties, very few things,
nothing that can distract from the faces. The important thing is what hap-
pens to the bodies” (Törnqvist, 2000: 178).
In Madame de Sade an almost empty, aristocratic, pre-revolutionary stage
in the beginning contrasted with a crammed post-revolutionary stage at
the end. In A Doll’s House the huge vertical space reduced the characters
to puppets. In Long Day’s Journey imaginary walls surrounded the highly
stylised Tyrone drawing room.
Lear‘s reference to the world as “this stage of fools” was spatially indicated
in B’s King Lear by the colour and shape of the stage which corresponded
to the red horse-shoe form of the auditorium; the director hereby created
a theatrum mundi connecting characters and audience. In the opening
of Hamlet the globe of this earth was literally inscribed in the circle on
the stage outside which the Ghost communicated with his son Hamlet
inside it; their handshakeing took place on the very border line. In Ghosts
a link between characters and audience was established when Mrs Alving’s
orphanage was placed in the auditorium forcing the characaters to face
the audience straight-on. Even more emphatic was the link between stage
and auditorium in Peer Gynt where not only Peer but also the audience
throughout the play found themselves literally within the walls of mother
Aase’s cottage.
Connections between the two theatrical areas could also be established
by having the characters appear in the auditorium. In The Bacchae the
Chorus entered the stage from the auditorium – as did Dionysus at the
end. In The Ghost Sonata the Student, similarly, crept – was ‘born’ – onto
the stage from the auditorium. At the end of A Doll’s House Nora indicated
The Serious Game 225
her representativity by leaving her home for the outside world through the
auditorium.
B is renowned for his sensitive and imaginative lighting on screen and
stage. And surely, the lighting often contributed strongly to the suggestive-
ness of the productions. Of primary importance was the strong frontal
lighting which testified to B’s concern with the human face, his wish to
make the stage faces approach the intimacy of cinema faces and enable
the audience to experience the mimicry of the characters at important
moments. Spot-lights were used effectively to surround Hamlet groping in
darkness in the early Ghost scene, and a spectacular spot in Mary Stuart
showed Leicester’s ‘decapitated’ head when he was looking down through
the floor opening at the beheading of Mary.
Blinding bluish light directed toward the audience was seen at the end
of Hamlet. A blinding white light – the evil heritage of de Sade pointing
forward to the Hiroshima bomb – turned Renée’s upturned head white at
the end of Madame de Sade. Dionysus’ revenge at the end of The Bacchae
took the form of a clap of thunder and strong white light on the stage from
behind the auditorium; the calamity was universal, shared by characters
and audience alike.
Music is usually used much more sparsely on the stage than on the screen.
Even so, music came to play an increasing role in B’s stage productions. In
accordance with Strindberg’s own idea, A Dream Play was filled with music,
although it mostly differed from the author’s preferences. The performance
opened with a single piano note, in C major and petered out at the end
on the same desolate note; beginning and end – a whole lifetime – was
musically embraced. The overture of Léhar’s The Merry Widow ironically
opened Hamlet and the performance ended with drum beats recalling the
opening of Beethoven’s Destiny Symphony. The romantic “Maiden’s Prayer,”
accompanying Nora’s fairy-tale reading to her daughter in the opening of A
Doll’s House, provided an ironic contrast to the illusion-shattering ending.
In Mary Stuart soft music as “from paradise” accompanied Mortimer’s
exalted description of Catholic culture, and a female voice singing what
was presumably a Scottish folksong in combination with projected drifting
clouds expressed Mary’s longing for freedom from her English imprison-
ment. The flute and drums accompanying the Chorus in The Bacchae not
only linked the production to what we imagine to be the ancient Greek
way of performance; more importantly they set the Dionysus worshippers
off from the ‘Apollonian’ Pentheus. When Dionysus appeared as prisoner
before Pentheus, the Roman’s attraction to the god-in-human-shape was
accompanied by soft music, indicative of the suppressed tenderness within
Pentheus. Japanese koto music, indicative of the affinity with no drama,

played a part in Madame de Sade. Music by Martinu was heard in Peer Gynt,
by Bartók in The Ghost Sonata. The Winter’s Tale was interspersed with a
capella singing of some of Almqvist’s Songes, the texts of which formed an
integral thematic part of the production.
The usually fairly empty three-dimensional stage was sometimes comple-
mented by two-dimensional back projections. In A Doll’s House their big size
served to diminish the characters, turn them into puppets. The projected
properties also served as static flashbacks, notably at the end when the
returning of the rings took place in front of a projected setting recalling the
altar where the marriage that was now annulled had once been contracted.
Helmer’s and Nora’s whole marriage was spatially visualised in the split
scenery. In Long Day’s Journey the projections were used incidentally show-
ing first the outside of the house where the action took place floating in the
air – a dreamy note; then through various, sometimes out-of-focus, interiors;
and finally a strongly lit (family) tree – a directorial invention – the branches
of which suggested the complicated relations of the four Tyrones. In The
Ghost Sonata the projected huge imaginary hyacinths in bloom strikingly
contrasted with the small real ones withering in the Young Lady’s window
box. In Ghosts two projections of Captain Alving at the peak of his life was
nostalgically contrasted with his later decline revealed in the dialogue.
All the projections could be seen as a cinematic way of transcending the
limitation of theatre in order to enter the souls of the characters.
B sometimes provided his stage performances with a self-invented
play-before-the-play. As more or less wordless sequences in which visual
impressions dominated, these playlets were similar to tableaux vivants. In
King Lear a twelve-minute prelude consisted of courtly dances before the
King, followed by wild folk dances as soon as he had disappeared, dem-
onstrating the social gap in Lear’s realm. In Maria Stuart the two queens/
cousins, Mary and Elizabeth, appeared side by side in the first moments
of the play, as if they were equals – until Mary changed from royal red to
black and moved to the far left, foreshadowing her imprisonment. In The
Misanthrope the game of Blind Man’s Buff anticipated the rivalry between
Alceste and Oronte and helped characterise Célimène. In Long Day’s Journey
the four family members formed a circle when the play opened, presenting
a wished-for harmonious unity that the play later questioned. In A Doll’s
House Ibsen’s opening with the arrival of the (symbolic) Christmas tree was
replaced by Nora’s reading a good-night fairy-tale to her daughter Hilde, a
fairy-tale starkly contrasting with Hilde’s experience of reality at the end
of the play, when she witnessed the divorce of her parents. Ghosts opened
with an emblematic picture of Mrs Alving center-stage frontally looking

at the audience. Her black dress, suggesting mourning, indicated that this
prologue to the play was actually an epilogue and that the play the audience
were to witness had actually taken place in Mrs Alving’s mind.
An added epilogue formed the end of Miss Julie when Jean, back in his
role as servant, poured coffee from the copper kettle into the silver pot and
carried it off to the Count. More enigmatic was the epilogue in Long Day’s
Journey, where B had Edmund re-enter and pick up his black notebook in
front of the projected radiant family tree. Did it visualise his entanglement
in the family or his – the burgeoning playwright’s – liberation from it?
In the course of the various productions there were incidentally situations
that were so pregnant with meaning that they could be called emblematic.
The mirror sequence at the end of Miss Julie was such a situation, the bridal
gown sequence concluding Long Day’s Journey was another. It was no coin-
cidence that these sequences appeared toward the end of the performances.
Not until the audience had been emotionally involved in the destinies of
the characters would such emblematic sequences be in-depth engaging.
Characters may appear either as individuals or as group members. To
indicate their category the court members in King Lear, Hamlet, and The
Winter’s Tale were anonymous and dressed in the same way. But the beggars
in King Lear, the peasants in Miss Julie, the wedding guests at Hægstad in
Peer Gynt, and the Chorus members in The Bacchae, unlike their anony-
mous textual counterparts, all had invidual names and characteristics.
The difference indicated that the subservience of the court members had
led to self-effacement whereas the common people had retained their
individuality. In Peer Gynt some guests at Hægstad had the same names
as some of the Dovre trolls, a way of stressing and enriching the play’s
fundamental troll-in-man theme. In The Ghost Sonata the characters had
individual appearances; yet all of them, except the Student, shared some sort
of physical defect; taken together it made them a collective representative
of the sickness of humanity.
A significant directorial device is to make certain characters correspond
to each other, sometimes to heighten the contrast between them, as was the
case with regard to the correspondence between Julie and Kristin in Miss
Julie. The correspondence between Mrs Alving and Regine in Ghosts, on the
other hand, suggested a fateful parallel between the two, the former seeing
the latter as mirroring her past young self. In Peer Gynt mother Aase and
Solveig became parallel figures in their all-embracing love for Peer; when
Peer hid his face in Solveig’s lap at the end, he was virtually returning to the
maternal womb. The correspondence between Lear and the Fool, suggested
already in the text, was indicated visually when the Fool put his cap on
Lear’s head – as Hamlet put his cap on the skull of Yorick, the court jester
of his childhood. The doubling of characters may suggest correspondences.
When B, in Hamlet, had the same actor play the Ghost and the First Player
the suggestion seemed to be that to Hamlet one was as real and as cherished
as the other.
Indications that a character connotes Everyman and as such is a thankful
identification object can be indicated in his or her neutral costume, similar
to what could be found in the audience. Hamlet and the Student in The
Ghost Sonata could be seen in this way.
A purely allegorical character was Time in The Winter’s Tale, an elderly
woman with a huge alarm clock.
The gender of the characters can be problematised. Dionysus, the male
god in The Bacchae who is both terrifying and mild, ‘male’ and ‘female,’
revealed his androgynous nature in B’s production by being played by an
actress. Similarly, Mamillius, a boy of ten in The Winter’s Tale, was played
by a girl; as an ‘androgynous’ character he/she was a representative child.
Unlike all the other women in Madame de Sade, Saint-Fond was dressed
like a man in riding costume and provided with a riding weal. A defender
of the values of marquis de Sade she seemed almost a substitute for the
physically off-stage but mentally very on-stage marquis.
As appears from his detailed drawings in the prompt books, B paid min-
ute attention to the characters’ blocking. Frontal position downstage could
mean alienation from the central acting area and direct communication
with the audience, as sometimes in the case of Alceste in The Misanthrope. A
similar strong position, in this case breaking with the illusion of the fourth
wall, was given to Mary Tyrone, when she was soliloquising at the end of
Long Day’s Journey. In Miss Julie Julie’s frontal position when the greenfich
was slaughtered behind her enabled the audience to focus on her reaction
to the killing rather than on the killing itself. Quite telling, in Hamlet,
was how the Councilors, ‘directed’ by Polonius, alternately turned to and
away from Claudius, a kind of kinetic censorship. Alternating proximity
and distance mirroring alternating mental attitudes characterised the
blocking of Madame de Sade; in the opening of the play, for example, the
immobility of Simiane contrasted with the restless to-and-fro of Saint-Fond.
Similarly, the immobility of Philinte in the beginning of The Misanthrope
contrasted with the restless mobility of Alceste. Early in Mary Stuart a row
of upright soldiers in grey uniforms did not become visible until Elizabeth’s
red-dressed Councilors in front of them knelt down, an indication of how
diplomacy precedes – and disguises – violence.
Gestures were of course often characterising. In The Misanthrope Al-

ceste’s frequently crossed arms were at once a dominant, Napoleonic and
a self-embracing, isolating gesture. Characters crossing themselves in a
Christian way would appear in several productions. At the end of The Ghost
Sonata the Milkmaid placed herself in the painful position of Christ on the
cross and at the end of Mary Stuart Mary spread her arms out in cross-form.
Both of them in this way demonstrated their satisfactio vicaria.
The positions of the characters were important not least in intimate
relationships. Hamlet opened with Claudius and Gertrud rolling across
the stage and copulating a tergo, animal fashion, more or less publicly, an
immediate expression of the corruption at the Danish court. Hamlet later,
taunting the manners at the court, mock-raped Ophelia. Goneril in King
Lear used her dress as a mask when she had her servant Oswald, in low
position, creep under it and suck her intimates. In Mary Stuart, similarly,
Elisabeth seduced Mortimer by spreading out her dress and hierarchically
sitting on him for a moment of sexual satisfaction. At the end of the play she
significantly loosened her hair and touched her abdomen when expecting
her lover Leicester to arrive. Jean’s putting a lilac to Julie’s mouth in Miss
Julie was a gesture inviting coitus. In A Doll’s House Helmer’s treating Nora to
money was followed by her spreading her legs inviting him to penetrate her,
an emblematic sequence demonstrating sex as trade within the marriage
and indirectly questioning the difference between marriage and prostitu-
tion. More or less publicly, sex – both hetero and homo – was traded between
upper and lower classes, in The Misanthrope between marquis Acaste
and servant Dorine and marquis Clitandre and servant Basque. In The
Bacchae Pentheus’ coitus position above Dionysus revealed his attraction
despite himself to the god-in-disguise. In The Ghost Sonata the Milkmaid’s
pregnancy – a directorial addition – indicated that she had been raped by
the Old Man – which motivated her role as his hang(wo)man. Even such a
seemingly innocent gesture as Mrs Alving kissing Manders in Ghosts had
wide repercussions since it repeated the fateful kiss in the past leading to
his break with the Alving family.
B at times chose to freeze the movements of the characters, a device
intermittently resorted to in The Winter’s Tale. The instant stasis that
was hereby effectuated punctuated the fluidity of the performance and
activated the audience while at the same time detaching it from it, since
the artificiality of the freezing made the spectators more aware that they
were witnessing a performance. When Elizabeth toward the end of Mary
Stuart stood completely still in the background for a long time, her right
hand raised against the right wall, her passivity concerning the fate of Mary
was signalled. At the end of The Ghost Sonata the Colonel and the Mummy
stood in frozen positions emphasising their isolation from each other and
from the recently dead Young Lady.
The sense of communion between stage and auditorium was further
emphasised by having the characters sometimes form an on-stage audience
mediating between the characters and the real audience. This was done
most explicitly in A Doll’s House, where characters when off-stage sat down
next to the platform where the acting took place; from there they remained
fully visible and watched the on-stage performance. In The Winter’s Tale
the guests at Hugo Löwenstierna’s party, sitting in the foremost row of the
auditorium, watched the performance of the Shakespearean play-within-
the-play along with the real audience. When B in A Dream Play placed the
Poet at his desk almost throughout the performance the indication was
that he was the dreamer-narrator of the play.
In some of the productions a character was at times isolated from the
rest – Cordelia in King Lear, Ophelia in Hamlet, Edmund in Long Day’s
Journey, Charlotte, the servant in Madame de Sade; the last-mentioned
was a class-determined eavesdropper on the aristocracy foreshadowing
the revolution to come. Incidentally allotted the role of observer, these
characters were in this activity comparable to the real audience. Insofar
as they appeared as internal ‘narrators,’ they lent a subjective angle to the
performances. What was enacted on the stage seemed at once to represent
reality and reality filtered through the mind of a character, a subjective
approach. It was hardly a coincidence that the observers tended to be young.
Remaining outside or at the periphery of the problematic world in which the
main characters dwelled, they could be compared to children set off from
the adults by virtue of their inexperience and innocence. Insofar as they
served as reminders of the spectators’ own past, they had a universalising
function. When, in Mary Stuart, Mary and Elisabeth were seen simultane-
ously on the stage, one in the foreground, the other in the background, one
speaking, the other silent, the arrangement visualised the idea that the two
were constantly on each other’s mind.
Costumes, like props, are usually time indicators. In that capacity they
may be stable, consistent as in Miss Julie, where they all mirror the fashion
around 1890. Or they may be fluent as in The Winter’s Tale, where they
stretch from the 17th to the 20th century, suggesting the fairy-talish universal-
ity of the action.
B’s costumes, always selected and manufactured with great care, often
played a contrasting role in the productions. Hamlet’s traditionally simple
black costume set him off against the red costumes of Claudius’ court.
Alceste’s equally simple dark-blue dress contrasted with the colourful, vain
costumes of his rivals, Célimène’s admirers. And Peer Gynt’s black suit at
the Hægstad wedding markedly differed from the red ‘folk costumes’ of the
invited guests. Saint-Fond’s masculine riding habit and sleek hair radically
contrasted with the elegant feminine costumes of the other women in
Montreuil’s salon, hiding their bodies, and the voluminous wigs hiding their
hair. In King Lear Edmund and Edgar were both in black but the material
of their costumes differed. Indicating both their half-brotherhood and
their moral polarity Edmund, the careerist, wore a shining dress, Edgar,
the altruist, a lustreless one.
The same could be true of hair fashion. In The Misanthrope Alceste’s sleek
hair contrasted with his rival Oronte’s gigantic wig, a visualisation more of
vain pomposity than upper-class. In The Bacchae Pentheus’ black fashioned
sleek hair was very different from Dionysus’ natural curly blond hair.
Similar costumes may designate affinity. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
in Hamlet were identically dressed, underlining that the two were always
speaking with one voice. Horatio’s grey dress, although more fashionable
and socially adjustable, was colourwise related to Hamlet’s black dress,
indicating their closeness. In A Doll’s House Nora, Hilde, and Hilde’s doll
were identically dressed, indicating the continuum from one generation
to another. In The Winter’s Tale Mamillius’ loyalty to both parents was sug-
gested in his costume, first blue like his father’s, then red like his mother’s.
Costumes may indicate a split within the character, as when, in Long
Day’s Journey, Tyrone’s elegant dressing-gown markedly contrasted with
his old slippers. Or when, in The Ghost Sonata, the Mummy’s grey negligee
was red below as if the blood of life was running out of her – the costume
of a ‘ghost.’ Costumes may suggest inner cold, as when the Old Man in the
same play appeared in fur cap and fur-edged coat although it was summer.
Or when Anne appeared similarly dressed in the last act of Madame de Sade.
Signif icant changes of costume may point to inner changes. Nora’s
change of costume at the end of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, arguably the most
significant costume change in world drama, was naturally retained by B,
although his choice of colour differed from Ibsen’s whose blue he replaced
by mournful black. Leontes in The Winter’s Tale significantly changed from
blue (credulous) to black (jealous) to white (penitent). When Renée at the
end of Madame de Sade swept her shawl around her head she discreetly
transformed it into a nun’s veil.
As exponents of culture, costumes may be contrasted with nudity
(nature). When both Ophelia and Mary Stuart appeared barefoot, it was
an indication of their humility and childlike naturalness. When Osvald
undressed at the end of Ghosts, it was a regressive gesture, returning him

to the baby he once was and to his naked original state.
With little scenery and few properties, the latter attract extra attention.
The four chairs mid-stage in Long Day’s Journey related to the four family
members while upstage the Greek column (hiding a liquor cabinet) formed
an ideological contrast to the sculpture of Virgin Mary corresponing to
the tension between Mary and her three men. In Ghosts the grandfather
clock and the sculpture of the half-nude young woman were both time
indicators relating to the generation motif in the play. On the bare stage of
King Lear the royalties were sitting on human ‘chairs’ – a visual reification
and a pregnant illustration of a suppressive class society. In Mary Stuart the
spectators were asked to imagine that a simple wooden chair represented
Queen Elizabeth’s throne.
Books played a significant role in some of the performances. When
Edmund in Long Day’s Journey told his father about his miraculous experi-
ences at sea, he did so by reading aloud from his notebook; the burgeoning
writer here came to the fore. Similarly, in The Ghost Sonata the Student’s
romantic appraisal of the hyacinth was likewise read aloud from his note-
book; rather than an impulsive outburst it was a writer’s contemplated
way of expressing himself. In The Winter’s Tale a red guest book figured as
incentive for Leontes’ jealousy; it had a kind of counterpart in the red shawl
Hermione put around Leontes’ neck. In the opening of Ghosts Mrs Alving
was seen reading a red book which apparently contained the provocative
feminist statements (falsely) ascribed to Malene Diderichsen, a book whose
pronounced feminism was later to shock Manders. In Madame de Sade the
novel Justine was a kind of stand-in for its absent author.
Fans played an important role in Madame de Sade and The Misan-
thrope. When open they were used to protect the owner, when closed they
functioned as weapons. The fans in this way became illustrative of the
fluctuation between defence and attack in the battles between the women.
Less time-determined than fans, mirrors figured in several stage produc-
tions. When Jean held up a mirror to Julie at end of Miss Julie, the situation
pregnantly visualised her imminent suicide. While Claudius in Hamlet com-
pared his deeds to the ugly face of a prostitute disguised by a pretty mask,
Gertrud, holding a hand-mirror in front of Ophelia, dramatised Claudius’
statement by turning the young girl’s face into that of a prostitute. Regine in
Ghosts and Anne in Madame de Sade demonstrated their vanity by looking
at themselves in imaginary mirrors. The many mirrors in The Misanthrope
emphasised the narcissicism of the characters. Arsinoé in this play used her
hand-mirror protectively; by looking at herself in it she at the same time
avoided glances from her enemy Célimène. In Peer Gynt the narcissistic
effect was arrived at when Peer in the Boyg scene was surrounded by a
host of characters holding up hand-mirrors in front of him; the man who
boasted to be no one but himself was confronted with a myriad of selves.
A garment may function as a prop or change into a prop. The Count’s boots
in Miss Julie, prominently placed downstage throughout the performance,
became a metonymy for the Count himself. While B here followed Strind-
berg’s stage direction, the changing of Jean’s half-boot into an imaginary
weal was his own suggestive way of turning a piece of costume into a tool
of power. Like the boots in Miss Julie the crown in King Lear prominently
figured on the forestage throughout the performance; a personal belonging
had become an object of strife. When Nora in A Doll’s House blindfolded
Rank with her black silk stockings, he came to share her erotically charged
garment; at the same time the gesture was at this moment a hint at an
imminent death that Nora came to believe they would share.
Handkerchiefs can be considered part of costumes but may also be used
as props. In Miss Julie Julie‘s perfume-scented but dirty handkerchief first
functioned as an aphrodisiac, then as a weapon. In King Lear Emund’s
hesitation between Regan and Goneril, was concretised in his hesitation
between the handkerchief of the former and the miniature portrait of
the latter; his dropping of the handkerchief settled the matter. Hamlet’s
contrasting of his father with Claudius was accompanied by his looking at
a miniature portrait of the former followed by a glance to the left where
Claudius had just appeared. Ophelia wiped one of her eyes with a hand-
kerchief when recalling how Hamlet’s penknife had pierced one of her
father’s eyes; the choice of a penknife rather than a dagger indicated how
the smallness of the murderous tool in Hamlet’s view fitted the mental size
of its victim. When B had Ophelia offer nails with names of flowers rather
than flowers to those closest to her, it was a sign not only of her madness
but also of how she tried to console herself by embellishing the cruelty she
had witnessed.
Hilde’s doll in A Doll’s House was a significant prop, enabling a sense of
continuum beyond the end of the play. In Mary Stuart Burleigh’s portfolio
containing state documents emblematically bore witness of the dutiful
civil servant; when he dropped it and tried to assemble the spread-out
documents, he was reduced to a humble, crawling human being.
A Dream Play ended with the characters’ returning their emblems to their
creator, the Poet. The Bacchae ended with the Chorus reverently putting
their thyrsus staffs on Semele’s altar-cum-grave, humbly recognising the
cruel power of Dionysus.
Cultural signifiers, demanding specific knowledge on the part of the

audience, played a role in several of the productions. Thus familiarity with
Mary Stuart’s behaviour shortly before she was executed helped to explain
her behaviour toward the end of B’s production.
Many signifiers referred to Swedish circumstances, familiar to the Stock-
holm audience but not to the foreign spectators witnessing the productions
when they went on tour. To the Swedes both the birch branches decorating
the kitchen in Miss Julie and the garland of wild flowers on Kristin’s head
were obvious tokens of Midsummer – as were the garlands worn by the
dancers in the Fairhaven Scene of A Dream Play as well as those worn by
the characters in the part of The Winter’s Tale, where Shakespeare’s sheep-
shearing feast gave way to a Swedish Midsummer celebration. Even Lear’s
wreath of wild flowers could have this connotation next to the Christian one
of a crown of thorns. The spectators who had enoyed higher education – and
they would be in the majority – would realise that the degree ceremony
in A Dream Play owed much to the way in which this academic ritual is
performed in Sweden. Much less known it would be that the belt-wrestling
at the end of King Lear relied on an old Scandinavian, possibly mythical
tradition.
Some of the references were cryptic even to most of the Swedish specta-
tors. Some of them would see a similarity between Aase’s hair fashion in
Peer Gynt and that of Sara Lidman, one of the foremost Swedish writers at
the time. Quite a few would grasp that B’s change of the number of scholars
in the Cairo asylum from seventy to eighteen was a dig at the eighteen
members of the Swedish Academy. Those who had looked at the cast in
the theatre program might realise that the house projected in the opening
of The Ghost Sonata was a replica of the so-called Red House at Karlaplan
in Stockholm where Strindberg, the author of the play, lived when writing
it; but few would know that the house was later replaced by another one
where B himself came to live and that it in this way became connected not
only with the writer but also, indirectly, with the director of the play. A few
critics noted that B’s Hamlet was not unlike B as an angry young man and
the choice of Peter Stormare for the role emphasised this by having Hamlet
wear the same kind of cap as the young director. Alving in Ghosts lacks a
Christian name; when B gave him the name of his own father, Erik, it was
a hint to the insiders that the Alving family was not far removed from B’s
own parental family. When he had Manders quote, not a female author as it
says in the performance, but actually Ibsen himself, the irony was so cryptic
that only those familiar with Ibsen’s notes for Ghosts would recognise the
quotation and grasp the hidden irony.
Having surveyed the variety of B’s devices as a stage director, let me

conclude with his overall view of his work in the theatre. “Whatever we
play,” he told Sjögren in 1968 (294), “it remains a game in which, with a
minute share on our own part, we give shape to life and death, joy and
sorrow, happiness and pain and whatever else. And it seems to me terribly
important that you take this game completely seriously and that you are all
the time aware that it is a game and don’t imagine that it is anything else.”
More than thirty years later he told Sjögren (2002: 112): “You mustn’t forget
that I am a playful person. I have played all my life. […] The need to play is
deep inside us all. Marquis de Sade played in his way, with peculiar toys.
My game began more modestly with puppetry, that was the starting point.
Nowadays the game is about life and death.”1 The qualification “a playful
person” (en lekande människa) recalls the Swedish title of Johan Huizinga’s
pioneering book Homo ludens (1938). Huizinga’s view that man’s activities
are fundamentally playful by no means excludes seriousness. Irrespective
of whether B ever read Huizinga’s book or not, the central view in it agrees
with his idea that his activity in the theatre is an expression of playfulness.
A serious game – in this seemingly contradictory but deeply meaningful
collocation we find the essential key to B as a stage director.
1 The English verb ‘play’ in Swedish corresponds both to leka (what children do) and to spela
(what actors do). Similarly the English noun ‘game’ in Swedish corresponds both to lek and spel.
Production Data
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, KING LEAR (c. 1608)
Credits
Swedish Title Kung Lear

Translation Britt G. Hallqvist
Stage & Costume Design Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss
Choreography Donya Feuer
Music Daniel Bell
Lighting Lars Johnsson
Running Time 3:30 plus 1 intermission
Stage Big Stage
Recorded September 6, 1985
Opening Date March 9, 1984 (176 performances)
Cast
King Lear Jarl Kulle

Goneril Margaretha Byström
Regan Ewa Fröhling/Gerthi Kulle
Cordelia Lena Olin
The Fool Jan-Olof Strandberg
Kent Börje Ahlstedt
Gloucester Per Myrberg
Edgar Mathias Henrikson
Edmund Thomas Pontén
Albany Per Mattsson
Cornwall Peter Stormare/Peter Andersson
Oswald Olof Lundström
Burgundy Lakke Magnusson
Frankland Peter Andersson/Johan Lindell
Old Man Oscar Ljung
Officer Hans Strååt
Servant Birger Malmsten
Scribe Rolf Skoglund
Doctor Frank Sundström
Messenger Gudmar Wivesson
Herald Jan Nyman/Hans Strååt

Captain Dennis Dahlsten
Fencing Master Pierre Wilkner
Goneril’s court, Regan’s court, Servants, Jugglers, Soldiers
AUGUST STRINDBERG, MISS JULIE (1888)
Credits
Swedish Title Fröken Julie

Lighting Hans Åkesson
Running Time 2:00
Stage Small Stage
Recorded December 3, 1985
Opening Date December 7, 1985
(167 + 9 performances)
Cast
Miss Julie Marie Göranzon

Jean Peter Stormare
Kristin Gerthi Kulle
Farmhands and servants Eva Callenbo, Anna von Rosen, Paula
Ternström, Peter Blomberg, Måns
Edwall, Lars-Erik Johansson
AUGUST STRINDBERG, A DREAM PLAY (1902)
Credits
Swedish Title Ett drömspel

Stage & Costume Design Marik Vos
Coreography Mait Angberg
Music Daniel Bell
Running Time 2:15
Stage Small Stage
Produc tion Data 239
Recorded April 22, 1986

Opening Date April 25, 1986 (34 performances)
Cast
The Poet Mathias Henrikson

The Glazier Oscar Ljung
Agnes Ellen Lamm, Linn Oké/Lena Olin/
Birgitta Valberg
The Officer Stellan Skarsgård
The Mother Irene Lindh
The Father Gösta Prüzelius
Lina, servant Ingrid Boström
The Doorkeeper Kristina Adolphson
The Billboarder Hans Strååt
The Singer Kicki Bramberg
The Prompter Dennis Dahlsten
The Policeman Carl Billquist
The Lawyer Per Myrberg
Kristin Gerd Hagman
The Quarantine Master Ingvar Kjellson
Don Juan Johan Lindell
The Coquette Dora Söderberg
He Pierre Wilkner
She Pernilla Östergren
Lina at Foulstrand Kicki Bramberg
The Retiree Oscar Ljung
The Friend Dennis Dahlsten
Edith Marianne Karlbeck
Edith’s Mother Gerd Hagman
A Naval Officer Mikael Säflund
Alice Louise Amble
The Husband Carl Billquist
The Wife Gertrud Mariano
The Blind Man Frank Sundström
The Teacher Åke Lagergren
Two Coalcarriers Olof Willgren, Jan Waldekranz
The Newly Wed Pernilla Östergren, Pierre Wilkner
The Lord Chancellor Carl Billquist
Dean of Theology Gösta Prüzelius
Dean of Philosophy Claes Thelander

Dean of Medicine Per Sjöstrand
Dean of Law Åke Lagergren
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET (c. 1601)
Credits
Swedish Title Hamlet

Stage & Costume Design Göran Wassberg
Choreography Mercedes Björlin
Music Jean Billgren
Running Time 3:45
Stage Big Stage
Opening Date December 20, 1986 (87 performances)
Cast
Claudius Börje Ahlstedt

Hamlet Peter Stormare
The Ghost Per Myrberg
Gertrude Gunnel Lindblom
Polonius Ulf Johanson
Laertes Pierre Wilkner
Ophelia Pernilla Östergren
Horatio Jan Waldekranz
Rosencrantz Johan Lindell
Guildenstern Johan Rabæus
Bernardo Joakim Westerberg
Marcellus Johan Rabæus
Francisco Dennis Dahlsten
Osric Johan Lindell
Court Lady Marie Richardson
A Priest Oscar Ljung
Gravedigger Ulf Johanson
Fortinbras Joakim Westerberg
Theatre King Per Myrberg

Theatre Queen Marie Richardson
Lucianus Oscar Ljung
Pelageia Gerd Hagman
Flutist Ivan Ossoinak
Drummer Michael Vinsa
A Captain Dennis Dahlsten
EUGENE O’NEILL, LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1941)
Credits
Swedish Title Lång dags färd mot natt

Translation Sven Barthel, Karl Ragnar Gierow
Music Daniel Bell
Sound Jan-Erik Piper
Projections Bengt Wanselius
Stage Main Stage
Cast
James Tyrone Jarl Kulle

Mary Cavan Tyrone Bibi Andersson
Jim Tyrone Thommy Berggren
Edmund Tyrone Peter Stormare
Cathleen Kicki Bramberg
YUKIO MISHIMA, MADAME DE SADE (1965)
Credits
Japanese Title Sado Kôshaku Fujin

Swedish Title Markisinnan de Sade
Translation Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Per Erik

Wahlund
Stage & Costume Design Charles Koroly
Music Ingrid Yoda
Lighting Sven-Erik Jacobson
Running Time 2:45 incl. 2 intermissions
Stage Small Stage
Recorded May 4, 1989
Opening date April 8, 1989 (162 performances)
Cast
Renée, the Marquise de Sade Stina Ekblad

Madame de Montreuil, her mother Anita Björk
Anne, Renée’s younger sister Marie Richardson
Baroness de Simiane Margaretha Byström
Countess de Saint-Fond Agneta Ekmanner
Charlotte, housekeeper Helena Brodin
HENRIK IBSEN, A DOLL’S HOUSE (1879)
Credits
Norwegian Title Et Dukkehjem

Swedish Title Ett dockhem
Translation Klas Östergren
Music Daniel Bell
Running Time 2:25 incl. 1 intermission
Stage Main Stage
Recorded November 13, 1989
Opening Date November 17, 1989 (105 performances)
Cast
Torvald Helmer Per Mattsson

Nora, his wife Pernilla Östergren
Hilde, their daughter Mirja Modén/Elin Ekman/Hanna
Ahlström/Erika Harrysson
Doctor Rank Erland Josephson
Mrs. Linde Marie Richardson
Krogstad Björn Granath
HENRIK IBSEN, PEER GYNT (1867)
Credits
Norwegian Title Peer Gynt

Swedish Title Peer Gynt
Translation Lars Forssell
Stage & Costume Design Lennart Mörk
Music Bohuslav Martinu
Running Time 2:30 plus 2 intermissions
Stage Paint Room, later moved to Big Stage
Cast
First Part: Tales and Dreams

Åse Bibi Andersson
Peer Gynt Börje Ahlstedt
Aslak, smith Carl Magnus Dellow
Ole, rabblerouser Anders Ekborg
Finn, rabblerouser Jakob Eklund
Hægstad Farmer Oscar Ljung
The Bridegroom Per Mattsson
His Mother Gerthi Kulle
His Father Jan Waldekranz
The Bride Ingrid Maria Ericson

Synnöve Görel Crona
Hilde Gunnel Fred
Nora Kicki Bramberg
Ingert Anna Björk
Solveig Lena Endre
Her Father Tord Peterson
Her Mother Agneta Ehrensvärd
Her Sister Helga Maja-Lena Holmberg/Rebecca Ebber-
sten/Linda Resén/Emilie Åkerlund
Other Guests at the Wedding Therese Andersson, Marie Bergen-
holtz, Jesper Eriksson, Ulf Evrén,
Jukka Korpi, Sara Larsson, Pia Muc-
chiano, Pahkinen, Erik Winqvist,
Thomas Wrisemo
Summer Dairy Girls Maria Ericson, Solveig Ternstræm,
Kristina Adolphson, Kicki Bramberg
The Woman in Green Gerthi Kulle
The Dovre Troll King Johan Rabæus
His Son Ole Anders Ekborg
His Son Finn Jakob Eklund
His Son Odd Benny Haag
His Son Egil Thomas Hanzon
His Daughter Synnöve Görel Crona
His Daughter Hilde Gunnel Fred
His Wife Kicki Bramberg
Greatgrandmother Agneta Ehrensvärd
Greatgrandfather Vaidur Pierre Wilkner
Troll Kid Anna Björk
The Boyg Maria Ericson, Carl Magnus Dellow,
Anders Ekborg, Jakob Eklund, Benny
Haag, Thomas Hanzon, Gunnel Fred,
Ulf Evrén, Jukka Korpi, Jesper Eriks-
son, Erik Winqvist, Sara Larsson,
Therese Andersson, Pia Muchiano,
Marie Bergenholtz
Kari Kristina Adolphson
Second Part: Foreign Lands

Trumpeterstråhle Jan Waldekranz
Master Cotton Björn Granath
Monsieur Ballon Agneta Ehrensvärd
Von Eberkopf Pierre Wilkner
Anitra Solveig Ternström
Asra Gunnel Fred
Basra Kicki Bramberg
Begriffenfeldt Johan Rabæus
Apis Maria Ericson
The Pen Per Mattsson
Third Part: The Homecoming

The Captain Tord Peterson
The Strange Passenger Björn Granath
The Cook Jakob Eklund
Aslak Carl Magnus Dellow
The Bridegroom Per Mattsson
Finn Görel Crona
Ole Gunnel Fred
Odd Kicki Bramberg
Egil Anna Björk
Synnöve Benny Haag
Hilde Jakob Eklund
Nora Anders Ekborg
Ingert Thomas Hanzon
People at the Auction Marie Bergenholtz, Jukka Korpi, Sara
Larsson, Virpi Pahkinen
The Sheriff Oscar Ljung
The Thoughts Gerthi Kulle
The Songs Solveig Ternström
The Tears Kristina Adolphson
Åse Bibi Andersson
The Button-molder Jan-Olof Strandberg
The Dovre Troll Johan Rabæus
Solveig Lena Endre
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE WINTER’S TALE (ca. 1610)
Credits
Swedish Title Vintersagan

Translation Britt G. Hallqvist, Claes Schaar
Stage & Costume Design Lennart Mörk
Music Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, Jean
Billgren
Running time 2:55 incl. 1 intermission
Stage Big Stage
Recorded May 11, 1994
Opening Date April 9, 1994
Cast
The female singer Irene Lindh

The male singer Pierre Wilkner
Leontes, king on Sicily Börje Ahlstedt
Hermione, his wife Pernilla August
Mamillius, their son, 10 years Anna Björk
Perdita, their daughter Kristina Törnqvist
Polixenes, king of Bohemia Krister Henriksson
Florizel, his son Jakob Eklund
Camillo, Sicilian nobleman Gösta Prüzelius
Antigonus, Sicilian nobleman Ingvar Kjellson
Cleomenes, Sicilian nobleman Jan Blomberg
Dion, Sicilian nobleman Pierre Wilkner
Paulina, Antigonus’wife Bibi Andersson
Emilia, Hermione’s lady in waiting Monica Nielsen
Amalia, Hermione’s lady in waiting Thérèse Brunnander
Archidamus, Bohemian nobleman Oscar Ljung
Judge John Zacharias
Gerontes Gerd Hagman
Shepherd Tord Peterson
Clown, his son Per Mattsson
Autolycus, petty swindler Reine Brynolfsson
Mopsa, shepherdess Thérèse Brunnander
Dorcas, shepherdess Monica Nielsen

Sailor Jan Nyman
Prison guard Oscar Ljung
Abbess Gerd Hagman
Old courtier Ingvar Kjellson
Time, as chorus Kristina Adolphson
J.B.P. MOLIÈRE, THE MISANTHROPE (1666)
Credits
French Title Le Misanthrope

Swedish Title Misantropen
Translation Hans Alfredson
Stage & Costume Design Charles Koroly
Music Jean Billgren, Domenico Scarlatti
Running Time 2:30 incl. 1 intermission
Stage Big Stage
Recorded March 2, 1995
Opening Date February 17, 1995 (117 performances)
Cast
Alceste Torsten Flinck

Célimène Lena Endre
Philinte Thomas Hanzon
Oronte Jarl Kulle
Éliante Nadja Weiss
Arsinoé Agneta Ekmanner
Acaste Mats Bergman
Clitandre Claes Månsson
Du Bois, Alceste’s servant Sven Lindberg
Basque, Célimène’s servant Benny Haag
Dorine Ingar Sigvardsdotter
An orderly Fredrik Hammar
Two servants Lars Andersson, Richard Gustavsson
EURIPIDES, THE BACCHAE (405 B.C.)
Credits
Greek Title Βάκχαι, Bakchai

Swedish Title Backanterna
Translation Göran O. Eriksson, Jan Stolpe
Stage & Costume Design Göran Wassberg
Music Daniel Börtz
Musicians Jan Bengtsson (flute), Kenneth Fant,
Daniel Kåse (drums)
Lighting Pierre Leveau
Stage Paint Room
Recorded March 12, 1996
Opening Date March 15, 1996 (84 performances)
Cast
Dionysos Elin Klinga

Pentheus Gerhard Hoberstorfer
Cadmos Erland Josephson
Agave Gunnel Lindblom
Tiresias Ingvar Kjellson
The Messenger Per Myrberg
The Guard Roland Jansson
The Companion Kicki Bramberg
The Officer Richard Gustafsson
Soldiers Lars Andersson, Max Winerdal
The Chorus
Alfa, leader of the chorus Anita Björk
Gamma Helena Brodin
Zeta Gunnel Fred
Lambda Kristina Törnqvist
Xi Gerthi Kulle
Sigma Inga-Lill Andersson
Omega Lil Terselius
Thalatta Donya Feuer
AUGUST STRINDBERG, THE GHOST SONATA (1907)
Credits
Swedish Title Spöksonaten

Stage Design Göran Wassberg
Costumes Anna Bergman
Choreography Virpi Pahkinen
Music Béla Bartók
Running Time 1:30
Stage Paint Room
Recorded February 2, 2000
Opening Date February 12, 2000 (119 performances)
Cast
The Old Man Jan Malmsjö

The Young Lady Elin Klinga
The Student Jonas Malmsjö
The Milkmaid Virpi Pahkinen
The Concierge Gertrud Mariano
The Dead Consul Nils Eklund
The Dark Lady Gerthi Kulle
The Mummy Gunnel Lindblom
Bengtsson Erland Josephson
Johansson Örjan Ramberg
The Fiancée Margreth Weivers-Norström
The Cook Gerd Hagman
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER, MARY STUART (1800)
Credits
German Title Maria Stuart

Swedish Title Maria Stuart
Costumes Charles Koroly

Music Daniel Börtz
Stage Big Stage
Opening Date December 16, 2000 (57 performances)
Cast
Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland Pernilla August

Elizabeth, queen of England Lena Endre
Hannah Kennedy, Mary’s wetnurse Gunnel Lindblom
Margareth Kurl, lady in waiting Charlotta Larsson
Burgoyn, doctor/de Verdières Tord Peterson
Lord Leicester Mikael Persbrandt
Lord Burleigh Börje Ahlstedt
Lord Talbot Per Myrberg
Davison, secretary Carl-Magnus Dellow
Lord Paulet Ingvar Kjellson
Drury Ulf Strandberg
Mortimer, Paulet’s nephew Stefan Larsson
Aubespin, French ambassador Nils Eklund
Melvil, Mary’s steward Erland Josephson
Okelly/de Larzac Pierre Wikner
Commander Jan Nyman
Officer/de Canisy Albin Holmberg
Prison guard Yngve Erik Lundin
Ladies at court, Soldiers
HENRIK IBSEN, GHOSTS (1880)
Credits
Swedish Title Gengångare

Translation/Adaptation Ingmar Bergman
Costumes Anna Bergman
Music Arvo Pärt

Stage Main Stage
Recorded February 9, 2002
Opening Date February 9, 2002 (? performances)
Cast
Mrs. Helene Alving Pernilla August

Osvald Alving, her son Jonas Malmsjö
Jacob Engstrand, carpenter Örjan Ramberg
Pastor Manders Jan Malmsjö
Regine Engstrand Angela Kovács
Bibliography
UNPUBLISHED SOURCES
The Royal Dramatic Theatre (Library)
Translation
Schiller, Friedrich von, Maria Stuart: Sorgespel i fem akter. 235 p. Övers. Britt G. Hallqvist.
Prompt scripts
Ibsen, Henrik, Peer Gynt
Schiller, Friedrich von, Maria Stuart
Shakespeare, William, Hamlet
Euripides, Backanterna
Ibsen, Henrik, Ett dockhem
Shakespeare, William, Kung Lear
Strindberg, August, Spöksonaten
Ibsen, Henrik, Gengångare
Production scripts
Euripides, Backanterna. 22 March 1996. 67 p.
Schiller, Friedrich von, Maria Stuart. 26 Dec. 2000.104 p.
Shakespeare, William, Vintersagan. 19 May 1994. 97 p.
Shakespeare, William, Hamlet. 16 Sep. 1986. 153 p.
O’Neill, Eugene, Lång dags färd mot natt. 19 March 1987. 110 p.
Strindberg, August, Fröken Julie. 22 Sep. 1985. 87 p.
Strindberg, August, Ett drömspel. 11 Jan. 1986. 108 p.
Ibsen, Henrik. Ett dockhem. 11 June 1989, revised 3 Nov. 1989. 131 p.
Ibsen, Henrik, Peer Gynt. 2 Feb. 1991.187 p.
Shakespeare, William, Kung Lear. 2 Oct. 1983.148 p.
Molière, Jean-Baptiste, Misantropen. 2 March 1995.109 p.
Strindberg, August, Spöksonaten. 12 Feb. 2000.79 p.
Ibsen, Henrik, Gengångare. 7 June 2001, revised 14 Feb. 2002.112 p.
Mishima, Yukio, Markisinnan de Sade. 8 April 1989. 118 p.
Ingmar Bergman Foundation
Director’s prompt scripts

O’Neill, Eugene, Lång dags färd mot natt
Strindberg, August. Ett drömspel
Molière, Jean-Baptiste, Misantropen
Mishimia, Yukio, Markisinnan de Sade
PUBLISHED SOURCES
Aarseth, Asbjørn. 1975. Dyret i Mennesket: Et bidrag til tolkning av Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt.
Bergen/Oslo/Tromsø.
Artaud, Antonin. (1938) 1958. The Theater and Its Double. Tr. Mary Caroline Richards. New York.
Bark, Richard. 1981. Strindbergs drömspelsteknik – i drama och teater. Lund.

Beck, Ingamaj. 1994. Scenrummet och det imaginära. Dramat, 3.
Bennich-Björkman, Bo. 1971. Fyrväpplingen och korset: Om symbolmeningen i Strindbergs Ett
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DVD list
William Shakespeare, Kung Lear/King Lear

1. Lear disinherits Cordelia.
2. Lear and the Fool.
3. Cornwall kicks out Gloucester’s eye.
4. Lear: “This great stage of fools.”
5. Edmund and Edgar belt-wrestling.
August Strindberg, Fröken Julie/Miss Julie

1. The opening: Jean and Kristin.
2. Jean slaughters the greenfinch.
3. The end: Jean and Julie prepare her suicide.
August Strindberg, Ett drömspel/A Dream Play

1. The Officer waiting for Victoria.
2. The degree ceremony.
3. The Coalheavers.
4. The School: the Officer as pupil.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

1. The murder of Gonzago.
2. The mad Ophelia hands out nails.
3. Hamlet and Laertes sword-fighting.
4. The end: arrival of Fortinbras’ army.
Eugene O’Neill, Lång dags färd mot natt/Long Day’s Journey into Night
1. The opening: the Tyrone family.
2. Edmund reads aloud from his notebook.
3. Jamie admits love-hatred for Edmund.
4. Mary’s end monologue.
Yukio Mishima, Markisinnan de Sade/Madame de Sade

1. Renée’s marriage.
2. “Save Alphonse.”
3. Anne and Saint-Fond.
4. Renée and her mother.
5. Renée and the blinding light.
6. The end: de Sade rejected.
Henrik Ibsen, Ett Dockhem/A Doll’s House

1. Helmer and Nora: money and intercourse.
2. Nora and Rank: the stocking sequence.
3. Nora’s tarantella.
4. The end: Nora’s departure.
Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt

1. Peer’s goat story.
2. The Haegstad wedding.
3. Among the trolls.
4. The Boyg.
5. Aase’s death.
6. The Cairo asylum.
7. The Lean Man.
8. The end: the reunion of Peer and Solveig.
William Shakespeare, Vintersagan/The Winter’s Tale

1. Hermione between Leontes and Polixenes.
2. Hermione before the court.
3. Perdita and Florizel.
4. Leontes flaggelant.
5. Hermione’s resurrection.
6. The end: Time.}
Jean-Baptiste Molière, Misantropen/The Misanthrope

1. The opening: Blind Man’s Buff.
2. Oronte recites his poem.
3. Célimène and Alceste in bed.
4. Célimène and Arsinoé.
5. Célimène revealed and abandoned.
6. The end: Alceste alone.
Euripides, Backanterna/The Bacchae

1. Chorus: “Come Bacchae.”
2. Chorus and Thalatta.
3. Pentheus and Dionysus; B directs.
4. The thunderstorm.
5. Dionysus’ revenge.
6. The end: the Bacchae place their thyrsus staffs on Semele’s altar.
DVD list 261
August Strindberg, Spöksonaten/The Ghost Sonata

1. The Old Man, the Student and the Milkmaid.
2. The drowning of the Milkmaid.
3. The hanging of the Old Man.
4. The end: death of the Young Lady.
Friedrich von Schiller, Maria Stuart/Mary Stuart

1. Elizabeth courted by emissaries of the French dauphin.
2. Leicester plans a meeting between Elizabeth and Mary.
3. Confrontation of the two queens.
4. Leicester witnesses Mary’s execution.
5. The end: Elizabeth abandoned.
Henrik Ibsen, Gengångare/Ghosts

1. The opening: Mrs Alving, Regine, Osvald.
2. Mrs Alving and Manders: “Ghosts.”
3. The Orphanage burns.
4. Osvald’s blood illness.
5. The end: Mrs Alving performs euthanasia on Osvald.
Index
Aarseth, Asbjørn 138n Scenes from a Marriage 13, 39, 115, 116n,
About All These Women see Bergman, Ingmar 212n, 214n
Aeschylus 181 Seventh Seal, The 13, 139n, 173n, 204n
Oresteia 181 Silence, The 171
After the Rehearsal see Bergman, Ingmar Smiles of a Summer Night 13, 164n, 166n
Aftonbladet see Journals Through a Glass Darkly 13
Albee, Edward 18 Ur-Faust 13
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 18 Virgin Spring, The 187
Alfredson, Hans 157, 158, 247 Wild Strawberries 127n
Almqvist, Carl Jonas Love 17, 145-147, 152, 154, Winter Light 13
226, 246 Wood Painting 13
Jaktslottet 145 Best Intentions, The see Bergman, Ingmar
Songes 145, 146, 226 Birth of Tragedy, The see Nietzsche, Friedrich
Andréason, Sverker 65, 68, 104, 105, 131, 141, 157, Björkstén, Ingmar 105
164(n) Böcklin, Arnold 67, 183
Arden Shakespeare, The 25 Toteninsel 67(n)
Artaud, Antonin 17 Borkman, John Gabriel 102n
Ashmore, Peter 124n Börtz, Daniel 171, 172, 248, 250
August, Pernilla 18, 246, 250, 251 Bosse, Harriet 61n
Bradley, A.C. 25, 26n, 73n
Bacchae, The see Euripides / Strindberg, Brecht, Bertold 17, 130n
August Mother Courage 130n
Bach, Johann Sebastian 61, 66 Threepenny Opera, The 17
Toccata and Fugue, No. 10 66 Bredsdorff, Thomas 37n, 50n, 68
Toccata in d minor 61 Brook, Peter 17, 25
Bæckström, Tord 31n
Bartók, Béla 186, 226, 249 Carpelan, Bo 101n
Music for Strings, Percussion and Chamberlain, Neville 137n
Celesta 186 Chekhov, Anton 39n
Beck, Ingamaj 147n Three Sisters 39n
Beckett, Samuel 17, 189 Chopin, Frédéric 61, 64, 65
Beethoven, Ludwig van 85, 183, 186, 225 Funeral March 61, 64, 65
Sturm, Der (The Tempest); see also City Theatre, Malmö see Theatres
Gespenster 183 Cries and Whispers see Bergman, Ingmar
Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor see Sturm, Crimes and Crimes see Strindberg, August
Der
Bennich-Björkman, Bo 63n Dagens Nyheter see Journals
Bergman, Ingmar passim Devil’s Eye, The see Bergman, Ingmar
About All These Women 104n Didrichsen, Malene 213
After the Rehearsal 20, 21n, 22, 62n, 180 Modern Woman, The 213
Best Intentions, The 164n Doll’s House, A (Ett dockhem) see Ibsen,
Cries and Whispers 110n Henrik
Devil’s Eye, The 112n Don Juan see Molière, J.B.P.
Face, The (The Magician) (1958) 13 Donnér, Jarl W. 98
Faithless (2000) 62n Dramat see Journals
Fanny and Alexander 14, 23n, 39n,72n, 111n, Dramaten, Stockholm see Theatres
146n, 150 Dream Play, A see Strindberg, August
God’ Silence see Silence, The
In the Presence of a Clown 173n Ekdahl, Emilie 14
Jack Among the Actors 14 Ekelöf, Gunnar 104
Magic Lantern, The (autobiography) 20 Ekerot, Bengt 88
Persona 14, 36n Eldridge, Florence 88
Ritual, The 172n, 180 Ellefsen, Tove 104, 124, 131, 136
Saraband 143 Endre, Lena 18, 136, 244, 245, 247, 250
Enquist, Per Olov 50n
Night of the Tribades, The 50n Peer Gynt 10, 129-141, 223, 224, 226, 227, 233,
Erik XIV see Strindberg, August 234, 243
Essen, Siri von 42 Rosmersholm 52n
Euripides 11, 171-181, 223, 248, 253, 260 Wild Duck, The 159n
Bacchae, The 11, 171-181, 223, 248, 253, 260 Iceman Cometh, The see O’Neill, Eugene
Expressen see Journals Intimate Theatre, Stockholm see Theatres
In the Presence of a Clown see Bergman,
Face, The (The Magician) (1958) see Bergman, Ingmar
Ingmar
Faithless (2000) see Bergman, Ingmar Jack Among the Actors see Bergman, Ingmar
Fanny and Alexander see Bergman, Ingmar Jacobs, Barry 5, 11, 242
Father, The see Strindberg, August Jahnsson, Bengt 68
Faust see Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Jaktslottet see Almqvist, Carl Jonas Love
Feuer, Donya 106, 150, 158, 237, 242, 243, 246, Jenkin, Harold 69
247, 248, 250 Journals:
Flinck, Torsten 172n, 247 Aftonbladet 134, 188, 220
Forslund, Bengt 15n Dagens Nyheter 18, 25, 68, 104, 124, 131, 136,
Forssell, Lars 129, 132, 243 146, 158, 165, 168, 173, 181, 189, 194, 207
Freud, Sigmund 57n Dramat 147n
Traumdeutung 57n Expressen 17, 68, 116, 194, 207
Fröhling, Ewa 39n, 237 Göteborgs Handels- och
Fröken Ur 155n Sjöfartstidning 31n
Funeral March see Chopin, Frédéric Göteborgs-Posten 65, 68, 104, 131, 141, 157,
Für Aline see Pärt, Arvo 164
Furumo, Richard 145, 146 Kvällsposten 58
Neue Zürcher Zeitung 188
Gespenster (Ghost) sonata 183 New York Herald Tribune 181
Ghosts (Gengangere) see Ibsen, Henrik NU 151
Ghost Sonata, The see Strindberg, August Politiken 37n, 68
Gierow, Karl Ragnar 88, 129, 241 Sundsvalls Tidning 149
God’ Silence see Silence, The Svenska Dagbladet 87n, 88n, 98, 104n, 105,
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 71n, 196 164n, 168, 172n, 184, 191, 194, 197, 207
Faust 71n Sydsvenska Dagbladet 98, 168, 194
Göranzon, Marie 39n, 238 Upsala Nya Tidning 219
Gossman, Lionel 168
Gösta Berling’s Saga see Lagerlöf, Selma Kermode, Frank 37n, 152n
Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning see King Lear see Shakespeare, William
Journals Koroly, Charles 104, 207, 242, 247, 249
Göteborgs-Posten see Journals Kott, Jan 37, 69n
Grieg, Edvard 129 Kurosawa, Akira 28
Grönstedt, Olle 151 Kvällsposten see Journals
Hallqvist, Britt G. 25, 36, 69, 73(n), 74, 144, 237, Lagerlöf, Selma 164n
240, 246, 249, Gösta Berling’s Saga 164n
Hamlet see Shakespeare, William Larsén, Carlhåkan 168, 194
Hammarén, Torsten 15 Larsson, Lisbeth 68
Heiknert, Karl-A lex 101n Léhar, Franz 69, 225
Heilman, Robert Bechtold 26n, 34n Merry Widow, The 69, 225
Hiraoka, Kimitaké 101 Long Day’s Journey into Night see O’Neill,
Hjelm, Keve 15 Eugene
Höök, Marianne 13 Löwenstierna, Frans 145
Löwenstierna, Henrik 145
Ibsen, Henrik 226, 231, 234, 242, 243, 250, 253 Löwenstierna, Hugo 145, 146, 230
Doll’s House, A (Ett dockhem) 12, 18, 39, Lundberg, Christina 149
49n, 115-127, 148, 209, 214n, 215, 223-226, Lundin, Bo 107
229-231, 233, 242 Lysell, Roland 219
Ghosts (Gengangere) 12, 19, 209-221, 223,
224, 226, 227, 229, 232, 234, 250, 261 Macbeth see Shakespeare, William
Nora 39 Madame de Sade see Mishima, Yukio
Index 265
Magic Flute, The see Mozart, Wolfgang Olin, Lena 53, 68, 237, 239
Amadeus / Schikaneder, Emanuel Olofgörs, Gunnar 34n, 41n, 116
Magic Lantern, The (autobiography) see O’Neill, Carlotta 88, 99n
Bergman, Ingmar O’Neill, Eugene 5, 11, 18(n), 87-99, 181, 241, 253
Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamlain de 13, 18 Iceman Cometh, The 88
Marker, Frederick J. 9, 115n Long Day’s Journey into Night 11, 18, 87-99,
Marker, Lise-Lone 9, 115n 241, 253
Marowitz, Charles 17, 25 Moon for the Misbegotten, A 88
Marquis de Sade see Sade, Marquis Donatien- Mourning Becomes Electra 88, 181
Alphonse-François de Oresteia see Aeschylus
Mary Stuart (Maria Stuart) see Schiller, Orgel, Stephen 148
Friedrich von Östergren, Pernilla 17, 239, 240, 243
Merry Widow, The see Léhar, Franz Othello see Shakespeare, William
Michelangelo 219
Pietà 219 Palmstierna-Weiss, Gunilla 26, 40n, 41n, 89,
Sistine Chapel 219 237, 238, 241, 242
Misanthrope, The see Molière, J.B.P. Pärt, Arvo 220, 251
Mishima, Yukio 11, 17, 101-113, 241, 253 Für Aline 220
Madame de Sade 11, 17, 101-113, 241, 253 Partie carrée, La see Watteau, Antoine
Miss Julie see Strindberg, August Pavlova, Anna 150
Mnouchkine, Ariane 157 Peer Gynt see Ibsen, Henrik
Modern Woman, The see Didrichsen, Malene Pelican, The see Strindberg, August
Molander, Olof 15(n), 57, 65, 88, 184, 186, 187 Persona see Bergman, Ingmar
Molière, J.B.P. 9, 11, 18, 117å, 157-169 Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor see Sturm,
Don Juan 71n, 110, 112n, 205n Der
Misanthrope, The 117, 157-169, 224, 226, 228, Pietà see Michelangelo
229, 231, 232, 247 Pinter, Harold 17
Moon for the Misbegotten, A see O’Neill, Pirandello, Luigi 59
Eugene Six Characters in Search of an Author 59
Mörk, Lennart 139, 146, 150, 243, 246 Politiken see Journals
Mother Courage see Brecht, Bertold
Mourning Becomes Electra see O’Neill, Quigley, Austin E. 55
Eugene
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 143, 173 Residenztheater Munich see Theatres
Magic Flute, The 143, 173 Ring, Lars 164n, 191, 197
Muir, Kenneth 25, 36 Ritual, The see Bergman, Ingmar
Munch, Edvard 189, 210, 212n, 219 Rokem, Freddie 104n
Room of the Aunts, The 212n Room of the Aunts, The see Munch, Edvard
Tête-à-tête 210 Rosen, Ingrid von 238
Vampire 219 Rosenberg, Marvin 35
Murder of Gonzago, The see Shakespeare, Rosmersholm see Ibsen, Henrik
William Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm see
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta see Theatres
Bartók, Béla Royal Opera, Stockholm see Theatres
Royal Shakespeare Company 53n
Nelson, Robert J. 168 Royal Theatre, Copenhagen see Theatres
Neue Zürcher Zeitung see Journals Rushdie, Salman 137
New York Herald Tribune see Journals
Nietzsche, Friedrich 88, 181 Sade, Marquis Donatien-Alphonse-François
Birth of Tragedy, The 181 de 101, 103
Night of the Tribades, The see Enquist, Per Sæverud, Harald 129
Olov Saga of the Folkungs see Strindberg, August
Nobel Prize 137 Salander, Anna 143n
Nora see Ibsen, Henrik Saraband see Bergman, Ingmar
Norén, Lars 17 Scenes from a Marriage see Bergman, Ingmar
NU see Journals Schaar, Claes 144, 246
Nykvist, Sven 14 Schering, Emil 183
Schikaneder, Emanuel 143
Magic Flute, The 143
Schiller, Friedrich von 11, 18, 195-207, 249-250 To Damascus I 15, 57, 59, 102n, 152
Mary Stuart (Maria Stuart) 18, 195-207, To Damascus II 102n
249-250 Stronger, The see Strindberg, August
Schwartz, Nils 207 Sturm, Der (The Tempest) see Beethoven,
Seventh Seal, The see Bergman, Ingmar Ludwig van
Shakespeare, William 11, 12, 18(n), 25-37, Sundsvalls Tidning see Journals
69-85, 88, 89, 143-155, 223, 234, 237, 240, Svenska Dagbladet see Journals
246 Swan Lake, The 61
Hamlet 25, 69-85, 92, 223-225, 227-232, Swedish Theatre, Helsinki see Theatres
240 Sydow, Max von 21, 129, 159n
King Lear 10, 16, 25-37, 223, 224, 226, 227, Sydsvenska Dagbladet see Journals
229-234, 237
Macbeth 25 Teje, Tora 88
Murder of Gonzago, The 77, 82 Tête-à-tête see Munch, Edvard
Othello 25 Theater am Marstall see Theatres
Winter’s Tale, The 12, 143-155, 223, 224, Theatres
226-232, 234, 246 City Theatre, Malmö 69n, 129, 157, 184
Shibusawa, Tatsuhiko 101 Dramaten, Stockholm 10, 15-18, 37n, 39, 58,
Silence, The see Bergman, Ingmar 61, 69, 85, 87(n), 88, 92, 101(n), 102n, 115,
Silesius, Angelus 163, 164, 224 116, 126, 130, 143, 146, 147, 150, 155, 157n,
Sistine Chapel see Michelangelo 171, 184, 224
Six Characters in Search of an Author see Intimate Theatre, Stockholm 16, 183, 184
Pirandello, Luigi Residenztheater Munich 10, 37, 39(n), 59,
Sjöberg, Alf 15, 17, 18n, 44n 102(n), 115
Sjögren, Hendrik 9, 18, 75, 194n, 210n, 235, Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm 10, 12,
Sjöman, Vilgot 104n, 184 16, 18, 158
Smiles of a Summer Night see Bergman, Royal Opera, Stockholm 171
Ingmar Royal Theatre, Copenhagen 69, 150
Sofia, Ulrika 145 Swedish Theatre, Helsinki 101n
“Sömngångare” (Sleepwalkers) see Strindberg, Theater am Marstall 39
August The Place, London 53n
Songes see Almqvist, Carl Jonas Love The Place, London see Theatres
Sörenson, Elisabeth 87, 194 Threepenny Opera, The see Brecht, Bertold
Sprinchorn, Evert 46, 138(n) Three Sisters see Chekhov, Anton
Stahl, E.L. 205n Through a Glass Darkly see Bergman, Ingmar
Stanislavsky, Konstantin 21 Tidblad, Inga 92
Steene, Birgitta 6, 9, 12, 39n, 214 Timm, Mikael 18, 27n, 76
Stormare, Peter 17, 234, 237, 238, 240, 241 Toccata and Fugue, No. 10 see Bach, Johann
Strasberg, Lee 21 Sebastian
Strindberg, August 5, 6, 9, 15, 16, 18, 37n, 39-53, Toccata in d minor see Bach, Johann
55-68, 71n, 87, 102n, 115, 120(n), 121, 144, 146, Sebastian
150, 152, 181, 183-194, 210, 225, 233, 234, 238, To Damascus I see Strindberg, August
249 To Damascus II see Strindberg, August
Bacchae, The 10, 11, 19, 171-181, 223-225, Törnqvist, Egil 5, 6, 184n
227-229, 231, 233, 248 Torsslow, Stig 99n
Crimes and Crimes 183 Toteninsel see Böcklin, Arnold
Dream Play, A 15, 55-69, 111, 144, 146, 181, Traumdeutung see Freud, Sigmund
223, 225, 230, 233, 234, 238 Tudor, Antony 150
Erik XIV 37n
Father, The 150 Upsala Nya Tidning see Journals
Ghost Sonata, The 5, 9, 13, 15, 67n, 71n, Ur-Faust see Bergman, Ingmar
168, 183-194, 213, 214, 218(n), 223, 224,
226-232, 234, 249 Vampire see Munch, Edvard
Miss Julie 5, 11, 17, 39-53, 115, 223, 227-230, Villiger Heilig, Barbara 188
232-234, 238 Virgin Spring, The see Bergman, Ingmar
Pelican, The 15, 210, 214, 216n Vogelweith, Guy 43n
Saga of the Folkungs 15 Vogler, Elisabet 14
“Sömngångare” (Sleepwalkers) 210 Vogler, Henrik 21n, 22, 180
Stronger, The 50n
Index 267
Wahlund, Per Erik 58, 184, 242 Wild Duck, The see Ibsen, Henrik
Wassberg, Göran 193n, 197, 240, 248, 249, 250 Wild Strawberries see Bergman, Ingmar
Watteau, Antoine 158 Winter Light see Bergman, Ingmar
Partie carrée, La 158 Winter’s Tale, The see Shakespeare, William
Weiss, Peter 39 Wood Painting see Bergman, Ingmar
Westling, Barbro 188, 220
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? see Albee, Zern, Leif 104, 116, 146, 158, 160, 165, 168, 173, 181,
Edward 189, 194, 207
Also by Egil Törnqvist
A Drama of Souls: Studies in O’Neill’s Super-naturalistic Technique (1968)

Svenska dramastrukturer (1973)
Bergman och Strindberg: Spöksonaten ‒ drama och iscensättning. Dramaten
1973 (1973)
Strindbergian Drama: Themes and Structure (1982)
Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’: A Play and Its Transpositions (with Barry Jacobs,
1988)
Transposing Drama: Studies in Representation (1991)
Filmdiktaren Ingmar Bergman (1993)
Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs (1995)
Ibsen, Strindberg and the Intimate Theatre: Studies in TV Presentation (1999)
Strindberg’s ‘Gosht Sonata’: From Text to Performance (2000)
Det talade ordet: Om Strondbergs dramadialog (2001)
Bergman’s Muses: Aesthetic Versatility in Film, Theatre, Television and Radio
(2003)
Eugene O’Neill: A Playwright’s Theatre (2004)
Strindberg som TV-dramatiker (2004)
Ibsen ‒ byggmästaren (2006)
Strindberg on Drama and Theatre (2007)
I Bergmans regi (2008)
Strindberg the Master Weaver (2010)
Strindbergs dramatiska bildspråk (2011)
Drama as Text and Performance: Strindberg’s and Bergman’s ‘Miss Julie’ /
Drama som text och föreställning: Strindbergs ‘Fröken Julie’ och Bergmans
(2012)

The Serious Game. Ingmar Bergman As Stage Director - Egil Törnqvist (2016)

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The Serious Game. Ingmar Bergman As Stage Director - Egil Törnqvist (2016)

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THE SERIOUS GAME

Ingmar Bergman as Stage Director EGIL TÖRNQVIST

Amsterdam University Press

Cover design: Sander Pinkse Boekproducties

isbn 978 90 8964 678 1

© E. Törnqvist / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2015

The internationally renowned Strindberg and Bergman scholar Egil Törn-

Egil Törnqvist focussed much of his research on August Strindberg as a

2. William Shakespeare, King Lear 25

3. August Strindberg, Miss Julie 39

4. August Strindberg, A Dream Play 55

5. William Shakespeare, Hamlet 69

6. Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night 87

7. Yukio Mishima, Madame de Sade 101

8. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House 115

9. Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt 129

10. William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale 143

11. J.B.P. Molière, The Misanthrope 157

12. Euripides, The Bacchae 171

13. August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata 183

14. Friedrich von Schiller, Mary Stuart 195

15. Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts 209

16. The Serious Game 223

DVD list 259

Film is an international medium, theatre a national one. As a film director,

“Ingmar Bergman’s Doll’s Houses,” Scandinavica, 30:1, May 1991. Chapter 10

My films are only a distillation of what I do in the theatre. Theatre work

…As head of Dramaten he reformed the theatre in several respects. He

additional information about the play to be performed, information that

the classics weren’t to be played as classics. They had to be rewritten or

This evaluation provokes the question: How “unadulterated” were the

like working with me and it’s easy to explain. As a professional I’ve

Actors, he maintained at another time,

As I harbour a constant tumult within me and have to keep watch over

Despite the mask, I am nevertheless not in disguise. My intuition speaks

Testimonies by four prominent actors – two male, two female – complement

B is, artistically, a rather tender-hearted person and if you show will-

He puts the stake [during rehearsals] as high as we actors. That’s why

Ingmar’s disciplinary philosophy I experience as extremely rewarding.

continually undergoes changes of mind, changes in his concentration.

The director could help in this back-and-forth movement: “I believe that if

Edgar in lustreless cloth, the evil Edmund in shining cloth. Gloucester’s

He that has and a little tiny wit,

When usurers tell their gold i’th’field;

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

This difficult-to-grasp soliloquy was rendered in a shortened, extremely

Cursed be the day when I was born!

fool.... Sweet fool and bitter fool,

The ambiguity of ‘fool’ was concretised in this exchange between someone

of them panic-stricken people fled down into the auditorium, transmitting

I swore to love both sisters.

if I choose Takes up orange handkerchief. Regan.

Necklace, portrait, and handkerchief, metonymies for Goneril and Regan,

regan. That he will never see, that I promise.

6 For illustrations of the masks, see Olofgörs, 1995: 168.

of mankind. In contrast to the uniformity of the groups at the courts, the

Anders, a laughing man

A blend of physical and mental sufferers, they form a representative piece

10 Sculptures representing belt-wrestling can be found in several places in Sweden, among

The weight of this sad time we must obey,

working dress. Similarly, Julie’s white slip, when occasionally glimpsed,

This is a dubious explanation for Strindberg’s deletion of the scar moti-

jean. Oh, what a lovely smell of violets!

Ingmar Bergman as Stage Director EGIL TÖRNQVIST

2. William Shakespeare, King Lear 25

3. August Strindberg, Miss Julie 39

4. August Strindberg, A Dream Play 55

5. William Shakespeare, Hamlet 69

6. Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night 87

7. Yukio Mishima, Madame de Sade 101

8. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House 115

9. Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt 129

10. William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale 143

11. J.B.P. Molière, The Misanthrope 157

12. Euripides, The Bacchae 171

13. August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata 183

14. Friedrich von Schiller, Mary Stuart 195

15. Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts 209

16. The Serious Game 223

DVD list 259