August Strindberg’s The Dance Of Death from 1900 has been credited with prefiguring the works of Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter and most notably provided a template for Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? However, in its latest incarnation at the Arcola in Hackney, which is the culmination of a tour started in May, I was forcibly reminded of the dynamic evoked by Noel Coward’s Private Lives – but with far fewer laughs.
NEWS: New Earth Theatre & Storyhouse bring Amy Ng’s acclaimed adaptation of Miss Julie to the Belgrade Theatre Coventry
Following its acclaimed run last year, New Earth Theatre and Storyhouse are presenting August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, adapted by Amy Ng and directed by Dadiow Lin, to Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre from 8-10 July 2021.
‘It could be any Hampstead media power-couple falling out today’: CREDITORS – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★
The artistic love affair between August Strindberg’s ghost, playwright Howard Brenton and director Tom Littler continues to bear strange fruit in Creditors at the Jermyn Street Theatre.
NEWS: Trevor Nunn, Howard Brenton & a gender-shifting Dorian Gray headline Jermyn Street’s 25th anniversary
Jermyn Street Theatre launches into its 25th anniversary year with a season of work that brings together celebrated theatrical figures Trevor Nunn and Howard Brenton with a rich array of exciting new talent.
‘It is hard to see why Stenham would need to borrow the classic’: JULIE – National Theatre ★★★
Polly Stenham joins the endless line of adaptors and updaters of August Strindberg’s toughly nasty, misogynistic Miss Julie: a play soaked in such fin-de-siecle Nordic hopelessness that it makes Ibsen look like PG Wodehouse.
‘Bears the marks of slightly unsatisfactory imitation’: JULIE – National Theatre
While Polly Stenham retains plenty of Strindberg’s purpose, Julie doesn’t go quite far enough in remoulding the political and psychological shape of its characters for the 21st century.
‘Unsettling & difficult to ignore’: CREDITORS – Edinburgh ★★★★
Strikingly staged and worryingly contemporary, Creditors at the Lyceum is unsettling and difficult to ignore.
‘Unsettling & difficult to ignore’: CREDITORS – Edinburgh ★★★★
Strikingly staged and worryingly contemporary, Creditors at the Lyceum is unsettling and difficult to ignore.
MISS JULIE – Jermyn Street Theatre ❤❤❤❤
Howard Brenton’s adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie is sharp and observant in which the tension is carefully built up in Tom Littler’s production.
THE BLINDING LIGHT – Jermyn Street Theatre
Howard Brenton’s latest takes a scalpel to the collapsing mind of playwright August Strindberg.
THE BLINDING LIGHT – Jermyn Street Theatre
Howard Brenton’s latest takes a scalpel to the collapsing mind of playwright August Strindberg.
Strindberg’s Women – Jermyn Street Theatre
August Strindberg is best known for the violence of his views on sexual politics. Miss Julie and Dance of Death are nothing if not agonised and agonising examinations of the hopeless wish to find equanimity in human relations between men and women.
DREAMPLAY – Vaults Theatre
August Strindberg’s expressionistic A Dream Play has inspired theatre makers since it’s debut in 1901. In the otherworldly Vaults, BAZ Productions reinvents the innovative work for a modern audience
MISS JULIE – Etcetera Theatre
Miss Julie is set on Midsummer’s Eve during a party on the estate of a rich Swedish Count whose daughter is known for behaving, not only with wild abandon, but also below her status. She finds a fascination with the older and well educated valet of the estate, Jean and the two become entangled in a dangerous infatuation that endangers both his engagement with the family cook and her own status in the house.
Photos: Final Father post-show panel on Women in the Arts
All good things must come to an end. Last night was the third and final post-show panel discussion in the series that I’ve programmed and hosted around Jagged Fence’s new production of The Father, starring Alex Ferns. While I’m sad the series has finished (it was such invigorating fun!), I’m happy to say that we went out on an absolute high. Following the past two weeks, in which we tackled “Feminism Today” and “Parenting Rights”, last night’s discussion subject was titled “Women in the Arts: Is Enough Being Done About Gender Inequality?”
Director Fiona Laird suggested that the balance be redressed by only allowing only plays by female writers to be produced for the next 300 years
The guests gathered to debate the point were: The Stage editor Alistair Smith, director and feminist campaigner Fiona Laird, actor and Act for Change founding member Stephanie Street and Evening Standard chief arts correspondent Louise Jury (click here for full panelist biographies); and, from The Father, director Abbey Wright, leading lady and producer Emily Dobbs, and cast member June Watson, as well as, on behalf of venue owner the Ambassador Theatre Group, London programmer Charlotte Longstaff.
All good things must come to an end. Last night was the third and final post-show panel discussion in the series that I’ve programmed and hosted around Jagged Fence’s new production of The Father, starring Alex Ferns. While I’m sad the series has finished (it was such invigorating fun!), I’m happy to say that we […]
Photos and podcast: Equal parenting, Fathers4Justice and Strindberg’s The Father
I’m still reeling after the thrillingly heated and thought-provoking panel discussion I hosted last night at Trafalgar Studios 2. This was the second in a series of post-show events I’ve programmed around issues and themes raised in Jagged Fence’s explosive new production of Strindberg’s The Father, starring Alex Ferns. We set a high benchmark with last […]
Photos and podcast: Feminism, Fifty Shades of Grey and The Father
How far have we come with feminism since August Strindberg was writing in the 1880s? “About halfway,” said Polly Toynbee on Monday night at Trafalgar Studios, in the first of a series of post-show panel discussions I’ve programmed and am hosting around Jagged Fence’s explosive new production of Strindberg’s The Father, starring Alex Ferns and directed […]
The Father – Review
Trafalgar Studios, London
****
Written by August Strindberg
In a new version by Laurie Slade
Directed by Abbey Wright
Alex Ferns
Few go to a Strindberg play looking for an harmonious depiction of the sexes and this co-production between Emily Dobbs’ Jagged Fence and Making Productions, while sharp in its execution, won’t do much to radicalise expectations.
Written in 1887 by the deeply embittered Swedish playwright, on the brink of marital separation and in a fashion that has triggered many autobiographical interpretations, The Father pitches husband and wife into a dark custody battle that predates paternity tests and equal rights. Laurie Slade’s modern adaptation – requested by his friend, theatre director Joe Harmston for a 2012 production – is driven more by collaborative forces than real-life drama, but it retains the original’s antagonistic bite.
Director Abbey Wright takes the reins for this intimate production with great success. While the Captain’s last-minute attempt to break the fourth wall doesn’t sit well with the play’s largely naturalistic style, Wright’s depiction of conflict – whether that be between husband and wife, mother and daughter, or father and child – is as stylish as it is evocative. As the warring characters face each other in mirror image, Wright clouds the dialogue’s clear oppositions with vivid visual similarities.
Thomas Coombes is a treat as Nöjd, the playful trooper who, if rumour is to believed, has impregnated a member of the Captain’s staff. While Nöjd is unable to deny a certain degree of intimacy, it is beyond his power to prove whether or not the baby is his. Coombes excels at lacing Nöjd’s crude, pastoral expression – “no guarantee that a night in the hay means a bun in the oven” – with a cheeky, modern charm, furnishing Slade’s notion that this is “a modern play, which happens to be set in the C.19th”.
What seems like idle gossip transforms into psychologically taut obsession as the play pulls towards its inevitable conclusion. Just as Nöjd doubts his lover’s fidelity, Alex Ferns’s dazzling Captain ploughs his own memories, as he questions whether young Bertha, who calls him ‘Papa’, is actually his issue or was in fact conceived by wife Laura (excellent on-stage work from Dobbs) during a lovers’ tryst. Ferns is vibrantly volatile and while other characters are equally paired in their disputes, he retains a chilling control over the tempo of the piece.
While the relationship between the Captain and his wife provides the thrust of this narrative, and the Captain and his Doctor (Barnaby Sax) are splendidly matched as rivals, it is the tender and trusting affinity between Captain and Nurse (June Watson) that brings the strongest emotional clout: “rest your breast on my chin”, the Captain commands his attendant, as a redundant Laura looks on jealously. This gentle, strikingly maternal relationship is complemented by James Turner’s set and Gary Bowman lighting, all stripped-back, monochrome as a Gothic aesthetic gradually melts into warmer reds.
Husband and wife may be “black and white…different species” but there’s a faith in relationships and the power of one gender to sooth and complement another. While this production doesn’t fall far from Strindberg’s tree, it’s a well-designed and interrogative take on an unfashionable play.
Runs until 11th April 2015
Guest reviewer: Amelia Forsbrook
You’re invited: Join my post-show panel debates at The Father
Updated 1 April: New speakers now added for “Women in the Arts” debate on Tuesday 7 April – London Evening Standard chief arts correspondent Louise Jury and writer-director-feminist Fiona Laird … I just love a good post-show Q&A and, frankly, I miss doing them as often as I used to in my WhatsOnStage days. My firm belief is that a […]