"Dance of Death" Strindberg - Ronconi

Characters

Edgar, captain of the fortress artillery.

Alice, his wife, a former actress.

Kurt, head of quarantine.

Minor characters:

Yenny.

Old woman.

Hourly (without words).

The interior of a round fortress granite tower. In the background there are massive gates with glazed doors, through which you can see the seashore with the batteries located on it and the sea.

There are windows on both sides of the gate, flowers and cages with birds on the window sills.

To the right of the gate is a piano; closer to the proscenium there is a table for needlework and two armchairs.

To the left, in the middle of the stage, is a desk on which a telegraph machine is installed; in the foreground there is a bookcase with a framed photograph on it. Near the shelf there is a couch. There is a buffet against the wall.

There is a lamp under the ceiling. On the wall near the piano, on either side of a portrait of a woman in theatrical costume, hang two large laurel wreaths tied with a ribbon.

Next to the door there is a hanger, on it are items of military uniform, sabers, etc. Near the hanger is a secretary. To the left of the door hangs a mercury barometer.

Warm autumn evening. The fortress gates are wide open, visible in the distance artilleryman, standing at a post near the coastal battery, wearing a helmet with a plume; from time to time his saber gleams in the crimson rays of the setting sun. The motionless surface of the water turns black.

Sits in the chair to the left of the needlework table Captain, twirling an extinguished cigar in his fingers.

He is wearing a worn field uniform and cavalry boots with spurs. There is an expression of fatigue and melancholy on the face.

In the chair on the right sat Alice. She looks tired, she is not busy with anything, but as if she is waiting for something.

Captain. Maybe you can play something?

Alice (indifferent, but without irritation). What exactly?

Captain. Whatever you want!

Alice. My repertoire is not to your taste!

Captain. And mine for you!

Alice (evasive). Can't close the doors?

Captain. As you wish! I think it's warm.

Alice. Then let them!.. (Pause.) Why don't you smoke?

Captain. I stopped tolerating strong tobacco.

Alice (almost friendly). So smoke lightly! This is your only joy, you say yourself.

Captain. Joy? What kind of thing is this?

Alice. Are you asking me? I don’t know any more about this than you do!.. Isn’t it time for whiskey yet?

Captain. A little later!.. What are we having for dinner?

Alice. How should I know! Ask Kristin!

Captain. For some reason the mackerel hasn't started yet; It's autumn outside!

Alice. Yes, autumn!

Captain. Both in the yard and at home! Of course, with autumn the cold will come - both in the yard and at home - but enjoying mackerel fried on the grill with a slice of lemon and a glass of white Burgundy is very good!

Alice.

What sudden eloquence!

Captain. Do we have any Burgundy left in the wine cellar?

Alice. As far as I know, our cellar has been empty for the last five years...

Captain. You never know anything. But we certainly I need to stock up for the silver wedding...

Alice. Do you really intend to celebrate it?

Captain. Naturally!

Alice. It would be much more natural to hide our family hell, our twenty-five-year hell, from prying eyes...

Captain. Dear Alice, hell is hell, but we also had good moments! So let's take advantage of the short time given to us, because then - the end of everything!

Alice. End! If!

Captain. End! All that remains is to take it out in a wheelbarrow and manure the garden!

Alice. And so much fuss about the garden!

Captain. Yes exactly; I have nothing to do with this!

Alice. So much fuss! (Pause.) Did you receive the mail?

Captain. Received!

Alice. Got the bill from the butcher?

Captain. He's here!

Alice. Big?

Captain (takes a piece of paper out of his pocket, puts on his glasses, but immediately puts them aside). See for yourself! I have bad sight…

Alice. What's wrong with your eyes?

Captain. Don't know!

Alice. Old age.

Captain. Nonsense! Am I the old one?!

Alice. Well, not me!

Captain. Hm!

Alice (looks at the bill). Can you pay?

Captain. Can; but not now!

Alice. So, later! In a year, when you retire with a tiny pension, it will be too late! Then, when you are overcome by illness again...

Captain. Disease? Yes, I haven’t been sick in my life, I didn’t feel well once, that’s all! I will live another twenty years!

Alice. The doctor has a different opinion!

Captain. At the doctor's!

Alice. Who knows better about diseases?

Captain. I don’t have any illnesses and never have. And it won’t, because I will die overnight, as befits an old soldier!

Alice. By the way, about the doctor. The doctor is having a party tonight, have you heard?

Captain (indignantly). So what of it! We weren’t invited because we don’t communicate with the doctor’s family, and we don’t communicate because we don’t want to, because I despise both of them. Scum!

Alice. There are only scum around you!

Captain. And there are only scum all around!

Alice. Except you!

Captain. Yes, except for me, because in all life circumstances I behave decently. Therefore, I am not a scumbag!

Pause.

Alice. Shall we play cards?

Captain. Let's!

Alice (takes out a deck of cards from the desk drawer and begins to shuffle it). Wow, doctor! Managed to get a military band for his party!

Captain (angrily). And all because he is creeping like a snake in front of the colonel in the city! That's right, it's creeping! I wish I had such abilities!

Alice (passes). I considered Gerda a friend, but she turned out to be completely false...

Captain. They are all fake!.. What are the trump cards?

Alice. Put on your glasses!

Captain. They don’t help!.. Yes, yes!

Alice. Trumps of spades!

Captain (dissatisfied). Peaks!..

Alice (walks). Yes, be that as it may, the wives of young officers shun us as if infected with the plague!

Captain (makes a move and takes a bribe). Well, so what? We don't host parties, so it makes no difference! I can get by quite well on my own... and always have!

Alice. Me too! But children! Children grow up without society!

Captain. It’s okay, let them look for it themselves, in the city!.. I took this one! Do you have any trump cards left?

Alice. One! This bribe is mine!

Captain. Six and eight is fifteen...

Alice. Fourteen, fourteen!

Captain. Six and eight are fourteen... I seem to have forgotten how to count! And two - a total of sixteen... (Yawns.) Give it to you!

Alice. Are you tired?

Captain (passes). Not at all!

Alice (listens). The music is coming all the way here! (Pause.) Do you think Kurt is invited too?

Captain. He arrived in the morning, so he had time to unpack his tailcoat, but he didn’t have time to come see us!

Alice. Chief of Quarantine! Will there be a quarantine post here?

Captain. Yes!..

Alice. Be that as it may, he is my cousin, I once bore the same last name...

Captain. Great honor...

Alice. Well that's it... (sharp) leave my relatives alone if you want yours not to be touched either!

Captain. Fine, fine! Let's not start the old song!

Alice. Does the head of quarantine mean a doctor?

Captain. No! Something like a civilian, a manager or an accountant, because nothing ever came of Kurt!

Alice. Poor thing...

Captain. Which cost me a tidy sum... And by leaving his wife and children, he covered himself in shame!

Alice. Don't judge so harshly, Edgar!

Captain. Yes, a shame!.. And what did he do there in America later? A? I can’t say that I particularly miss him! But he was a decent young man, I loved talking to him!

Alice. Because he always gave in to you...

Captain (arrogantly). Whether he gave in or not, at least you could talk to him... Here on the island, not a single bastard understands what I say... just a bunch of idiots...

Alice. It’s amazing, Kurt had to come just in time for our silver wedding... it doesn’t matter whether we celebrate it or not...

Captain. What’s surprising here!.. Oh yes, it was he who brought us together, or got you married, as it was called!

Alice. Stupid idea...

Captain. We had to pay for it, not him!

Alice. Yes, just think if I hadn’t left the theater! All my friends became celebrities!

Captain (rises). Well, okay!.. It's time to drink some grog! (He goes to the buffet, makes himself some grog and drinks it while standing.) There would be a crossbar here to put your foot on, and you could imagine that you are in Copenhagen, at the American Bar!

Alice. We'll make you a crossbar, as long as it reminds you of Copenhagen. After all, those were our best days!

Captain (drinks convulsively). Exactly! Do you remember the lamb stew with potatoes at Nimba? 1
"Nimbus" - the name of a famous restaurant in Copenhagen.

? (Smacks his lips.) M-ma!

Alice. No, but I remember the concerts in Tivoli 2
Tivoli - name of a Copenhagen city park.

Captain. Well, clearly, you have such exquisite taste!

Alice. You should be glad that your wife has taste!

Captain. I am happy...

Alice. Occasionally, when you need to show it off...

Captain (drinks). They're probably dancing at the doctor's... The bass trumpets are playing at three quarters... bom... bom-bom!

Alice. Waltz "Alcazar" 3
"Alcazar" - Spanish waltz by composer O. Reder (1893).

Yes... it's been a while since I danced the waltz...

Captain. Would strength still be enough?

Alice. More?

Captain. Well, yes! Has not your time, like mine, passed?

Alice. I'm ten years younger than you!

Captain. Therefore, we are the same age, because a woman is supposed to be ten years younger!

Alice. I'd be ashamed! You're an old man; and I’m in the prime of life!

Captain. Well, of course, when you want, you are the very charm... with others.

Alice. Shall we light the lamp?

Captain. Please!

Alice. Then call!

The captain, moving his legs with difficulty, approaches the desk and rings the bell.

* * *

Yenny enters from the right.

Captain. Yenny, please light the lamp.

Alice (sharp). Light the top lamp!

Yenny. I obey, Your Grace! (Fiddles with the lamp under the Captain's gaze.)

Alice (hostile). Did you wipe the glass well?

Yenny. Yes, I rubbed it a bit!

Alice. What kind of answer is this!

Captain. Listen... listen...

Alice (Ennie). Get out! I'll light it myself! It will be better this way!

Yenny (goes to the door). I think so too!

Alice (rises). Get out!

Yenny (hesitates). I wonder what you'll say if I leave completely?

Alice is silent. Yenny leaves. The captain, going to the lamp, lights it.

Alice (concerned). Do you think she'll leave?

Captain. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, but then we’ll have a hard time...

Alice. It's your fault, you're spoiling them!

Captain. Nothing like this! You can see for yourself that they are always polite to me!

Alice. Because you are groveling before them! However, you generally grovel before your subordinates, since you are a despot with a slavish nature.

Captain. Yah!

Alice. Yes, you grovel before your soldiers and non-commissioned officers, but you cannot get along with your equals in position and with your superiors.

Captain. Wow!

Alice. A match for all tyrants!.. Do you think she will leave?

Captain. Absolutely, if you don’t go and talk to her kindly now!

Alice. I?

Captain. If I go, you will say that I am after the maids!

Alice. What if she really leaves! The whole household chores will fall on me again, like last time, and I’ll ruin my hands!

Captain. That's not the problem! If Yenny leaves, Christine will leave too, and then we won’t see the servants here on the island anymore! The navigator from the ship will intimidate anyone who comes here to look for a place... but he won’t, my corporals will take care of it!

Alice. Oh, these corporals... I feed them in my kitchen, but you don’t have the courage to throw them out the door...

Captain. There is not enough, because otherwise no one will remain to serve for the next term... and the gun shop will have to be closed!

Alice. And we'll go broke!

Captain. Therefore, the officer corps decided to appeal to His Royal Majesty with a request to provide an allowance for provisions...

Alice. For whom?

Captain. For the corporals!

Alice (laughs). You are crazy!

Captain. Laugh, laugh! This is useful.

Alice. I will soon completely forget how to laugh...

Captain (lights cigar). It’s impossible... and without that it’s just pure melancholy!

Alice. Yeah, it’s not much fun!.. Shall we play again?

Captain. No, cards bore me.

Pause.

Alice. You know, it still infuriates me that my cousin, the new head of quarantine, first of all goes to our enemies!

Captain. Great importance!

Alice. Have you seen the list of arriving passengers in the newspaper? He is recorded there as a rentier. It turns out that he got some money!

Captain. Rentier! Soooo! Rich relative; truly the first in this family!

Alice. In yours - the first! And in mine there are a lot of rich people.

Captain. If he got hold of money, that means he’s turned his nose up, but I’ll put him in his place! He won't sit on my neck!

The telegraph machine clattered.

Alice. Who is this?

Captain (freezes). Shut up, please!

Alice. Well, come over!

Captain. I already hear, I hear what they say!.. These are children! (He approaches the device and taps out the answer, after which the device works for some more time, the Captain answers.)

Alice. Well?

Captain. Wait!.. (Tapping the “end of reception” sign.) These are children, telegraphing from headquarters. Judith is unwell again, she stays at home and does not go to school.

Alice. Again! What else?

Captain. Money, of course!

Alice. And why is Judith in such a hurry? I would pass the exam next year, no problem!

Captain. Try telling her this, see if it makes any difference!

Alice. You tell me!

Captain. How many times have I said it! But you know, children always do things their own way!

Alice. At least in this house!

The captain yawns.

Isn't it embarrassing to yawn in front of your wife?

Captain. What should we do?.. Don’t you notice that we say the same thing every day? So you just said your favorite line, “at least in this house,” to which I should have responded, as I usually answer: “This is not only my house.” But since I answered this way five hundred times, no less, I yawned. My yawn may mean that I’m too lazy to answer, or: “You’re right, my angel,” or: “That’s enough.”

Alice. You know, the doctor ordered dinner from the city, from the Grand Hotel!

Captain. Well, yes?! So, they are feasting on hazel grouse! (Smacks his lips.) M-ma! Hazel grouse is the most exquisite bird, but frying it in pork lard is barbaric!..

Alice. Ugh! Talk about food!

Captain. Well, then about the wines? I wonder what these barbarians drink with their hazel grouse?

Alice. Shall I play for you?

Captain (sits at the desk). Last reserve! Well, come on, just spare me from your funeral marches and elegies... painfully deliberate music. And I usually write a text for it: “That’s how unhappy I am!” Meow meow! “That’s what a monstrous husband I have!” Brr, brr, brr! “Oh, if only he would end it sooner.” Joyful drum roll, fanfare; finale of the waltz "Alcazar"! Gallop "Champagne" 4
Gallop "Champagne"- a musical play by the Danish composer H. S. Lumbye (1845).

Speaking of champagne, we seem to have two bottles left. Let's open the door and pretend like we have guests, huh?

Alice. No, we won’t open it, these are my bottles; they were given to me!

Captain. You're thrifty!

Alice. And you are a penny-pincher, at least in relation to your wife!

Captain. I don’t know what to think of!.. Should I dance or what?

Alice. Thank you, I'm sorry. Your time has probably passed.

Captain. Why don't you get yourself a girlfriend?

Alice. Thank you very much! Why don't you make yourself a friend?

Captain. Thank you very much! Already tried, to mutual displeasure. But the experiment was not without interest - as soon as a stranger appeared in the house, we were happy... at first...

Alice. But then!

Captain. Yes, don't tell me!

There's a knock on the door on the left.

Alice. Who would it be this late?

Captain. Yenny doesn't usually knock.

Alice. Go open it, just don’t shout “come in” as if you were in a workshop!

Captain (heads towards the door on the left). Oh, how we don’t like workshops!

There is a knock again.

Alice. Open it up!

Captain (opens and takes the extended business card). This is Christine... What, Yenny left? (Since the audience cannot hear the answer, he turns to Alice.) Yenny is gone!

Alice. And I become a maid again!

Captain. And I'm a farm laborer!

Alice. Is it possible to take one of the soldiers into the kitchen?

Captain. Not those times!

Alice. But Yenny didn’t send the card, did she?

Captain (looks at the card through his glasses, then hands it to Alice). Read it, I can't see it!

Alice (reads the card). Kurt! It's Kurt! Go get him!

Captain (exits through the left door). Kurt! What a joy!

Alice straightens her hair, she seems to have perked up.

* * *

Captain (enters from left with Kurt). Here he is, our traitor! Welcome, buddy! Let me hug you!

Alice (to Kurt). Welcome to my home, Kurt!

Kurt. Thank you... We haven't seen each other for a long time!

Captain. How much is this? Fifteen years! And we managed to grow old...

Alice. Well, I don't think Kurt has changed a bit!

Captain. Sit down, sit down!.. First of all, your program! Are you going to visit in the evening?

Kurt. I was invited to the doctor, but I didn’t promise to come!

Alice. In this case, you stay with relatives!

Kurt. This would be the most natural thing, but the doctor is like my boss, I’ll get into trouble later!

Captain. Nonsense! I have never been afraid of bosses...

Kurt. Don't be afraid, but troubles can't be avoided!

Captain. I am the boss here on the island! Stick with me, and no one will dare lay a finger on you!

Alice. Shut up, Edgar! (Takes Kurt's hand.) The owners, the bosses - God be with them, you are staying with us. No one will dare to reproach you for violating decency and rules!

Kurt. Well, so be it!.. Especially considering that I seem to be welcome here.

Captain. Why shouldn’t we be happy?.. We don’t hold a grudge against you...

Kurt can't hide some depression.

And why? Of course, you were a rogue, but that was when you were young, and I forgot everything! I'm not vindictive!

Alice stands with a pained expression on her face. All three sit down at the craft table.

Alice. Well, have you traveled around the world?

Kurt. I traveled, and now I find myself with you...

Captain. From those whom you wooed twenty-five years ago.

Kurt. Nothing like that, but that doesn't matter. But I’m glad that your marriage has lasted for a quarter of a century...

Captain. Yes, we are pulling the strap; Anything could happen, but, as said, we hold on. And it’s a sin for Alice to complain: she doesn’t sit idle, and money flows like a river. You probably don’t know that I am a famous writer, author of a textbook...

Kurt. How, I remember, I remember - even before our paths diverged, you published a successful textbook on small arms! Is it still used in military schools?

Captain. Yes, he is still in first place, although they tried to replace him with another, much worse one... now, however, they are doing this new thing, but he is no good!

Painful silence.

Kurt. I heard you went abroad!

Alice. Yes, we went to Copenhagen five times, can you imagine!

Captain. Yes Yes! You see, then I took Alice from the theater...

Alice. Took away?

Captain. Yes, he took you, as one should take a wife...

Alice. Look how brave he is!

Captain. For which I later took full credit, since I interrupted her brilliant career... um... In return, I had to promise my wife to take her to Copenhagen... and I... honestly kept my word! We were there five times! Five! (Extends his left hand with his fingers spread.) Have you been to Copenhagen?

Kurt (with a smile). No, I’m more and more in America...

Captain. In America? They say it's a bandit country, right?

Kurt (depressed). Not Copenhagen, of course!

Alice. Have you heard anything from the children?

Kurt. No!

Alice. Forgive me, please, but still, leaving them like that was thoughtless...

Kurt. I didn’t give up, the court awarded them to their mother...

Captain. Enough about this! In my opinion, you only won by getting away from all these troubles!

Kurt (Alice). How are your children doing?

Alice. OK, thank you! They study at school in the city; Soon they will become adults!

Captain. Yes, they are great for me, and my son has such a brilliant head! Brilliant! He will go to the General Staff!

Alice. If accepted!

Captain. Him? Yes, he will be the Minister of War!

Kurt. Oh, by the way!.. A quarantine post is being set up here... plague, cholera and all that stuff. Doctor, as you know, my boss... What kind of person is he?

Captain. Human? He is not a man, but a mediocre bandit!

Kurt (Alice). Very sad for me!

Alice. Not everything is as scary as Edgar claims, but I can’t deny that I don’t like him...

Captain. There is a bandit! And the rest too - the head of customs, the postmaster, the telephone operator, the pharmacist, the pilot... whatever his name is... the head of the pilot station - all bandits, and therefore I don’t communicate with them!

Kurt. Are you at odds with everyone?

Captain. With everyone!

Alice. It’s truly impossible to communicate with these people!

Captain. You would think that tyrants from all over the country were exiled to this island!

Alice (with irony). That's for sure!

Captain (good-naturedly). Hm! Are you hinting at me? I'm not a tyrant! At least not in the family!

Alice. I don't have enough spirit!

Captain (to Kurt). Dont listen her! I'm a pretty decent husband, and my old lady is the best wife in the world!

Alice. Kurt, would you like something to drink?

Kurt. Thank you, not now, I keep it in moderation!

Captain. Have you become an American?

Kurt. Yeah!

Captain. But I don’t follow the measures - it’s either all or nothing. A real man should know how to drink!

Kurt. Getting back to your neighbors here on the island! Due to my position, I will have to deal with everyone... and maneuvering, I believe, will not be easy, because no matter how hard you try, you will still be drawn into intrigue.

Alice. Go, go to them, you will always have time to come to us - after all, you have real friends here!

Kurt. It must be terrible to live like you, among enemies?

Alice. Not much fun!

Captain. Nothing terrible! I have lived all my life among enemies, but I have not seen any harm from them, on the contrary, only benefit! And when one day my hour of death strikes, I will be able to say that I owe nothing to anyone and that I have never received anything for nothing in my life. Everything I have, I got with my own hump.

Alice. Yes, Edgar’s path was not strewn with roses...

Captain. It was strewn with thorns and stones, flint... but I relied on my own strength! Do you know what this is?

Kurt (Just). I know, I realized their scarcity ten years ago!

Captain. Poor fellow!

Alice. Edgar!

Captain. Yes, poor fellow, if he cannot rely on his own strength! Of course, when the mechanism fails, all that remains is a wheelbarrow and a vegetable garden, that’s true, but while it’s working, you have to kick and fight, with your arms and legs, as far as you can! That's my philosophy.

Kurt (smiles). It's funny how you talk...

Captain. But don't you think so?

Kurt. I don't think so.

Captain. And yet it is so!

During the last scene, a strong wind rises, and now the gate in the background slams shut with a loud bang.

The artillery captain and his wife Alice, a former actress, live in a fortress on an island. Autumn. They sit in the living room located in the fortress tower and talk about the upcoming silver wedding. The captain believes that she should definitely be noted, while Alice would prefer to hide their family hell from prying eyes. The captain reconcilingly notes that there were good moments in their lives and they should not be forgotten, because life is short, and then it’s the end of everything: “All that’s left is to take it out in a wheelbarrow and manure the garden!” - “So much fuss over the garden!” - Alice replies sarcastically. Spouses are bored; not knowing what to do, they sit down to play cards. That evening everyone gathered for the doctor's party, but the Captain is not on good terms with him, like everyone else, so he and Alice are at home. Alice worries that because of the Captain’s difficult character, their children are growing up without society. Alice's cousin Kurt arrived from America after an absence of fifteen years and was appointed to the island as the head of the quarantine. He arrived in the morning, but had not yet appeared with them. They assume that Kurt went to the doctor. The sound of a telegraph machine is heard: it is Judith, the daughter of the Captain and Alice, telling them from the city that she does not go to school and asks for money. The captain yawns: he and Alice say the same thing every day, he's bored of it. Usually, in response to his wife’s remark that the children always have their own way in this house, he replies that this is not only his house, but also hers, and since he has already answered her this way five hundred times, now he simply yawned.

The maid reports that Kurt has arrived. The captain and Alice rejoice at his arrival. When talking about themselves, they try to soften the colors, pretend that they live happily, but they cannot pretend for long and soon begin to scold again. Kurt feels that the walls of their house seem to exude poison and the hatred has thickened so much that it is difficult to breathe. The captain leaves to check the posts. Left alone with Kurt, Alice complains to him about her life, about her tyrant husband who cannot get along with anyone; They don’t even keep servants, and for the most part Alice has to do the housework herself. The captain turns the children against Alice, so now the children live separately, in the city. Inviting Kurt to stay for dinner, Alice was sure that there was food in the house, but it turned out that there was not even a crust of bread. The captain returns. He immediately guesses that Alice managed to complain to Kurt about him. Suddenly the Captain loses consciousness. Having come to his senses, he soon faints again. Kurt tries to call a doctor. After waking up, the Captain discusses with Alice whether all married couples are as unhappy as they are. Having rummaged through their memory, they cannot remember a single happy family. Seeing that Kurt is not coming back. The captain decides that he, too, has turned his back on them, and immediately begins to say nasty things about him.

Soon Kurt arrives, who found out from the doctor that the Captain has multiple heart disease and he needs to take care of himself, otherwise he could die. The captain is put to bed, and Kurt remains at his bedside. Alice is very grateful to Kurt for wanting the best for both of them. When Alice leaves. The captain asks Kurt to take care of his children if he dies. The captain doesn't believe in hell. Kurt is surprised: after all, the Captain lives in the middle of nowhere. The captain objects: this is just a metaphor. Kurt replies: “You depicted your hell with such authenticity that there can be no talk of metaphors here - neither poetic nor any other!” The captain doesn't want to die. He talks about religion and is ultimately consoled by the thought of the immortality of the soul. The captain falls asleep. In a conversation with Alice, Kurt accuses the Captain of arrogance, because he argues according to the principle: “I exist, therefore. God exists". Alice tells Kurt that the Captain had a hard life, he had to start working early to help his family. Alice says that in her youth she admired the Captain and was at the same time terrified of him. Having started talking about the Captain's shortcomings again, she can no longer stop. Kurt reminds her that they were only going to say good things about the Captain. “After his death,” Alice replies. When the Captain wakes up, Kurt persuades him to write a will so that after his death Alice will not be left without a livelihood, but the Captain does not agree. The Colonel, at the request of Alice, grants the Captain leave, but the Captain does not want to admit that he is sick and does not want to go on leave. It goes to the battery. Kurt tells Alice that the Captain, when it seemed to him that life was leaving him, began to cling to Kurt’s life, began asking about his affairs, as if he wanted to get into him and live his life. Alice warns Kurt that he should never let the Captain near his family or introduce him to his children, otherwise the Captain will take them away and alienate them from him. She tells Kurt that it was the Captain who arranged for Kurt to be deprived of his children during the divorce, and now regularly scolds Kurt for allegedly abandoning his children. Kurt is amazed: after all, at night, thinking that he was dying, the Captain asked him to take care of his children. Kurt promised and is not going to take out his resentment on the children. Alice believes that keeping her word is the best way to take revenge on the Captain, who hates nobility more than anything else.

Having been in the city. The captain returns to the fortress and says that the doctor did not find anything serious with him and said that he would live another twenty years if he took care of himself. In addition, he reports that Kurt's son has been assigned to the fortress and will soon arrive on the island. Kurt is not happy about this news, but the Captain is not interested in his opinion. And one more thing: The captain filed an application for divorce in the city court, because he intends to connect his life with another woman. In response, Alice says that she can blame the Captain for the attempt on her life: he once pushed her into the sea. Their daughter Judith saw this, but since she is always on her father’s side, she will not testify against him. Alice feels powerless. Kurt feels compassion for her. He is ready to start fighting the Captain. Kurt came to the island without harboring anger in his soul, he forgave the Captain all his previous sins, even the fact that the Captain separated him from his children, but now, when the Captain wants to take his son away from him, Kurt decides to destroy the Captain. Alice offers him her help: she knows something about the dark affairs of the Captain and the bayonet cadet who committed the embezzlement. Alice rejoices, anticipating victory. She remembers how Kurt was not indifferent to her in his youth, and tries to seduce him. Kurt rushes towards her, wraps his arms around her and sinks his teeth into her neck until she screams.

Alice is happy that she has found six witnesses willing to testify against the Captain. Kurt feels sorry for him, but Alice scolds Kurt for his cowardice. Kurt feels like he's in hell. The captain wants to talk to Kurt privately. He admits that the doctor actually told him he wouldn't last long. Everything he says about the divorce and the appointment of Kurt's son to the fortress is also untrue, and he asks Kurt for forgiveness. Kurt asks why the Captain pushed Alice into the sea. The captain himself doesn’t know: Alice was standing on the pier, and it suddenly seemed completely natural to him to push her down. Her revenge also seems completely natural to him: since the Captain looked death into the eyes, he has gained cynical humility. He asks Kurt who he thinks is right: him or Alice. Kurt does not recognize any of them as right and sympathizes with both of them. They shake hands. Alice enters. She asks the Captain how his new wife feels and says, kissing Kurt, that her lover feels great. The captain draws his saber and rushes at Alis, slashing left and right, but his blows hit the furniture. Alice calls for help, but Kurt doesn't move. Cursing them both, he leaves. Alice calls Kurt a scoundrel and a hypocrite. The captain tells her that his words that he will live another twenty years and everything else that he said when he arrived from the city are also not true. Alice is in despair: after all, she did everything to put the Captain in prison, and they are about to come for him. If she had managed to save him from prison, she would have devotedly looked after him and loved him. The telegraph machine is knocking: everything is fine. Alice and the Captain rejoice: they have already tormented each other enough, now they will live peacefully. The captain knows that Alice tried to destroy him, but he crossed it out and is ready to move on. She and Alice decide to celebrate their silver wedding in a grand manner. Kurt's son Allan sits in the ornate living room of his father's home, solving problems. Judith, the daughter of the Captain and Alice, invites him to play tennis, but the young man refuses, Allan is clearly in love with Judith, and she flirts with him and tries to torment him.

Alice suspects that the Captain is up to something, but she just can’t figure out what. Once she forgot herself, seeing a savior in Kurt, but then she came to her senses and believes that it is possible to forget “what never happened.” She is afraid of her husband's revenge. Kurt assures her that the Captain is a harmless prick who invariably shows his affection for him. Kurt has nothing to fear - after all, he copes well with his duties as the head of the quarantine and otherwise behaves as expected. But Alice says that he is in vain to believe in justice. Kurt has a secret - he is going to run for the Riksdag. Alice suspects that the Captain has found out about this and wants to nominate himself.

Alice talks to Allan. She tells the young man that he is in vain to be jealous of the Lieutenant: Judith is not at all in love with him. She wants to marry the old colonel. Alice asks her daughter not to torture the young man, but Judith does not understand why Allan is suffering: after all, she is not suffering. The captain returns from the city. He has two orders on his chest: one he received when he retired, the second when he took advantage of Kurt’s knowledge and wrote articles about quarantine posts in Portuguese ports. The captain announces that the soda factory has gone bankrupt. He himself managed to sell his shares in time, but for Kurt this means complete ruin: he loses both his house and his furniture. Now he can’t afford to leave Allan in the artillery, and the Captain advises him to transfer his son to Norrland, to the infantry, and promises his help. The captain hands Alice a letter that she took to the post office: he checks all her correspondence and suppresses all her attempts to “destroy family ties.” Upon learning that Allan is leaving, Judith is upset, she suddenly understands what suffering is and realizes that she loves Allan. The captain has been appointed quarantine inspector. Since the money for Allan's departure was collected through subscription lists, Kurt's failure in the elections to the Riksdag is inevitable. Kurt's house goes to the Captain. Thus, the Captain took everything from Kurt. “But that ogre left my soul untouched,” says Kurt Alice. The captain receives a telegram from the colonel whom he wanted to marry Judith to. The girl called the Colonel and said some insolent things, so the Colonel breaks off relations with the Captain. The captain thinks that the matter could not have happened without the intervention of Alice, and draws his saber, but falls, overtaken by an apoplexy. He plaintively asks Alice not to be angry with him, and Kurt to take care of his children. Alice is happy that the Captain is dying. Judith thinks only of Allan and does not pay attention to her dying father. Kurt feels sorry for him. At the moment of death, only the Lieutenant is next to the Captain. He says that before his death the Captain said: “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Alice and Kurt talk about how, despite everything, the captain was a good and noble man. Alice realizes that she not only hated, but also loved this man.

Zingerman B.I.

ABOUT THE STRINDBERG THEATER

Zingerman B.I. Essays on the history of drama of the 20th century

August Strindberg (1849 - 1912) belongs to the circle of authors of the new drama. Like Ibsen, he mastered various styles of modern art. Like Shaw, he was a theater practitioner and theorist. Like Chekhov, he worked in drama and fiction, bringing the achievements of European prose into his mature plays. His early aesthetic treatises, dating back to the end of the 80s, are close to the ideas of Antoine and the young Stanislavsky, the theatrical experiences of the period of the Intimate Theater (1907 - 1910) are reminiscent of the experiments of Reinhardt and the young Meyerhold. A participant in the great theatrical revolution, he walked alongside others: he began as a follower of Zola, and ended with symbolist quests.

At the same time, the fate of his theatrical heritage is quite unusual.

Strindberg's most repertoire plays were written in the last century. Meanwhile, its popularity reaches its climax after the First World War, in the early 20s. The playwright, who entered the theater stage under the banner of naturalism, became the god of the European expressionists. With the fading of the expressionist movement, its influence fades away. In the 1930s, few people were interested in the Swedish writer. After the end of the Second World War, Strindberg became popular again, now for a long time. This time the name of the Swedish writer is not associated with any one preferred direction. Finally, it becomes possible to judge his works more or less objectively.

In 1949, in an article about August Strindberg, imbued with enthusiastic and grateful feelings, Thomas Mann determines the reason for his undiminished influence: “He had gone too far forward as a thinker, a prophet, a bearer of a new worldview for his work to lose at least some degree for us your strength. Remaining outside of schools and movements, rising above them, he absorbed them all into himself” 73.

Now, after the Second World War, it has become abundantly clear that Strindberg's work continues to be relevant to Western culture as a whole, since he anticipated some of its persistent problems and contradictions. As for Strindberg's influence on modern theater, what should be borne in mind is not so much the number of his plays that are constantly in the repertoire, but rather his direct and constant influence on Western playwrights. To paraphrase the title of Dürrenmatt's famous opus, created based on the Danse Macabre, we can say that in our time, those who do not play roles in his plays often “play Strindberg.” In the West, he is undoubtedly the most influential of the authors of new drama, second in this sense only to Chekhov. Over the decades, the Swedish writer's popularity has waxed and waned. It is easy to notice that it attracts attention in crisis moments of history, when the seemingly unshakable and immutable moral values ​​of bourgeois society are subject to revaluation, when people are seized by a bitter, sarcastic spirit of doubt, when the tragedy of individualism reveals its hopelessness and acquires especially gloomy, ruthless and nude forms.

Compared to other authors of the new drama, August Strindberg expressed the crisis of individualistic consciousness most acutely and consciously. He felt the danger of worsening omens aimed at belittling the individual, and did not want to take them into account. He realized what an unenviable fate was in store for a person in modern society - and did not want to accept it, he challenged it. He saw how the opportunities given to man for self-realization were fading, and he did not consider it necessary to resign himself, did not deny his heroes the most daring intentions. And, although in the mercilessness of his conclusions he reached the last, painful, destructive extremes, his initial premises - unexpected, stunningly bold observations on the psychology, behavior and constant life collisions of Western man - were impeccably accurate and could not be disputed either by Strindberg’s contemporaries or especially by today's dramatic authors.

This was the extremely simple and harsh assumption made by the writer on the basis of his own mental experience. If in society, in order to succeed, you need to get around others, enter into competition with them, rise above them, then the law of competition will inevitably spread to the intimate sphere of life and invade gender relations. In Strindberg, a man achieves dominance over a woman, and is met with the same competitive feeling in return. The cult of freedom, characteristic of the romantic worldview, in the second half of the last century leads to the perception of the surrounding reality as hostile to personal freedom. It turns out that a person can maintain independence only through stubborn resistance to the claims of the outside world. Following this, the conclusion is drawn that personal freedom can only be achieved as a result of life’s triumph. Only the winner can become independent. It turns out that an independent person is one who defeated another and made him dependent on himself. Strindberg, with his fanatical consistency, excludes no one from the number of competitors, enemies who encroach on the freedom of the individual, especially his wife, a spy for the outside world. The relationship between two people - a man and a woman - develops as if one of them were to become an owner, and the other - an employee, one - to receive all the rights of a citizen of the metropolis, and the other - to fall into the position of a powerless colonial resident.

On this occasion, Brandes, in an article about Strindberg, makes a sad remark: “Hatred and war between peoples are a sad thing. Racial hatred and race war are even stupider and sadder. But war and hatred between the two sexes, between the two halves of the human race - let us be human! - says the parrot in Andersen's fairy tales" 74.

In “The Father” (1887), spouses fight for the soul of their daughter, like imperialist countries for spheres of influence. This play talks about the enmity between husband and wife: it is a kind of racial hatred.

Unexpectedly, it seems that the strained metaphor in “Samum” is personified: a frenzied, hate-filled native woman brings to death a European officer, the enslaver of her homeland.

In “Freken Julia” (1888), enmity flares up between a young footman and the count’s daughter. The confrontation between Jean and Julia is born from gender differences and class inequality. By possessing a young noblewoman, the footman satisfies his male vanity and his injured class feeling. In turn, the exalted, nervous girl is drawn to the vulgar commoner; Julia is captivated by his plebeian health and charm - as a woman, she feels like his slave. To get even with Jean, she stabs him in the eyes with his lackey rank. The night date between Jean and Julia is a meeting of two people halfway: she goes down the social ladder - from the luxurious count's chambers to the dirty people's chambers, he is preparing to go upstairs and clearly foresees the opportunities opening up to him. As a man, an experienced conqueror of hearts, Jean feels much superior to the count's daughter; as a lackey who knows his place, for the time being he behaves obsequiously with her. The complexity of the suddenly arising situation is that Jean is not indifferent to Miss Julia; he idolizes her since childhood and at the same time expects to take advantage of her feminine weakness - her fall from grace - in the interests of his own bourgeois career. The footman gains the upper hand in a love match and imposes his merciless will on the noble girl, because he is a handsome man and because he belongs to the energetic, rapidly rising lower classes, and she belongs to the degenerating, downward-sloping upper class of society. The gravitation of the sexes in “Mistress Julia” is, of course, not love, as minstrels sang about it, and not a fatal romantic passion, but a mortal duel, physiological rivalry, which, however, is not devoid of alarming and debilitating poetry - “the gloomy, dim fire of desire” . The programmatic naturalism of Strindberg's play is complicated from the very beginning by a number of additional circumstances. Julia is a half-breed, she is the daughter of a count and a woman from the people, she has no real noble arrogance. On the other hand, Jean is not just a man of the people, he is a lackey, a serf, a servant, accustomed to tremble before the count and revere his daughter. Biological, love-romantic and social motives in the play “Freken Julia” are intertwined so complexly that it is impossible to separate them from one another. The duel between Jean and Julia is as much a struggle between a man and a woman as it is a struggle between classes; it has the same relation to the problem of gender as to the problem of social inequality.

In Samum and Miss Julia, the enmity between men and women is burdened by racial or class antagonism. In other plays, the hatred of two in itself contains all the necessary causes and consequences.

In Danse Macabre (1901), the most monumental work of the mature Strindberg, the battle between husband and wife takes place on an island, in a sea fortress, in a round watchtower, in view of the formidable coastal guns - a real theater of war. He is an old campaigner, a military bone, an expert in ballistics and combat maneuvers. She is a former actress, and over a quarter of a century of marriage, she has become an expert in strategy and tactics. Opponents act according to all the rules of a protracted military campaign: they attract allies, gain a foothold on conquered lines, and create a false impression of their intentions and reserves. The man and woman behave as if they were at war - and they speak in a military way: that “the fortress does not need to be surrendered” and that “gunpowder” should be taken care of. She complains that her husband armed the children against her; in turn, she armed them against him. The Thirty Years' War, in which two people participate, acquires almost national proportions; “Parties, voting and bribery” take place here. Proud, bilious, not without traces of former greatness, the artillery captain hates everyone: his superiors, his subordinates, his relatives and fellow citizens. He is at odds with everyone, he despises everyone, in his eyes the surrounding society consists of fools and despots. It would seem that, dooming himself to loneliness, to a sad seclusion in a stone tower, he should all the more cherish the only thing he has left - his beloved wife. But no. The fierce custom of war of all against all, which rules the world, penetrates into the bosom of the family, into everyday life, into everyday marital dialogue.

In the trilogy “The Road to Damascus” (1898 - 1904), which immediately precedes the generalized and sharp style of expressionist drama, the painful conflict between a man and a woman arises as a direct consequence of unresolved social contradictions. The hero of the trilogy - Unknown, an outstanding poet and scientist, in whose image personal autobiographical motives are so palpable - cannot get along with one or the other wife, because he cannot get along with humanity. The situation of a catastrophic break in natural human connections is repeated and repeated: the poet cannot find happiness with his second wife, just as she could not find happiness with her first husband, and her father could not find happiness with her mother. According to Strindberg, not a single man can get along with any woman, because people generally cannot get along with each other: they oppress, deceive and persecute each other, asserting themselves by subjugating someone else’s will and someone else’s life. The poet and the woman begin their common life by opening their souls to each other and saving each other from persecution, and end by suspecting and hating each other. She admits that she enjoys stalking and humiliating him, and he calls her “my dear fury.” Sooner or later, the relationship between a man and a woman, even if it arises as a challenge to society, must come into conformity with the moral law prevailing in society.

Strindberg wrestled with the same damned questions that tormented his predecessors and older contemporaries - those were the first to be affected by the liberating romantic trends and the first to see how harmful the effect of individualism unleashed in intimate lyrical relationships between people. The Swedish writer could exclaim after Tyutchev: “Oh, how murderously we love, // As in the violent blindness of passions // We most certainly destroy, // What is dear to our hearts!”

The problem of gender, so popular in his time, is considered by Strindberg in the gloomy context of prevailing social relations.

In this sense, his antipode in European literature was the philosopher and essayist Vasily Rozanov, hardly comparable to him in scale, direction and nature of creativity, with his pantheism, aimed primarily at the sacrament of childbirth and marriage. Rozanov contrasted the tragic, unstable and cynical world of the public with the sacred ordinariness of private life. Let the outside world drown in the opening abyss and go to waste - if only the family’s Noah’s Ark survives. Even if it is uncomfortable, cold and scary outside the walls of the house, even if the snow falls and the long night oppresses, a person will be protected and warmed by the warmth of the hearth. And according to Strindberg, as well as Dostoevsky, the climate in your yard is the same at home. Strindberg, like Blok, has no comfort, no peace. For Rozanov, marriage is a bright, connecting harmony; for Strindberg, it is a tragic severance of the last human connections. For Rozanov, the problem of gender goes back to the endless life-giving race, while for Strindberg it is confined to the individual—a single, tormented person. Strindberg's torn, sobbing hellish laughter is echoed by Rozanov's busy, bewitching cooing.

The thirst for self-affirmation that torments Strindberg's heroes can only be satisfied at the expense of others. After all, to win means to inflict defeat on another. However, it turns out that the other has the same decisive intentions, the same indomitable fighting spirit. For Ibsen and Hauptmann, the problem of the crisis of individualism is solved through the relationship of the strong with the weak, the individualist hero with the petty philistine opposing him. In this respect, Hauptmann is especially far from Strindberg. Hauptmann's strong people become neurasthenics because they do not want - they do not dare - to assert their independence at the expense of the weak. The problem of individualism for Hauptmann is the problem of wolves and sheep, the problem of the strong who must step over the weak. But Strindberg has no weaknesses. The man and woman in his plays are the wolf and the she-wolf. And if a woman more often wins with him, it is not due to her strength, but due to greater adaptability - greater cunning.

The Nietzschean problem of the superman, which occupied Strindberg for so long, is completely meaningless for him: next to the individualist hero, in spite of him, there is a woman with the same uncontrollable vital pressure, the same aggressive aspirations. The Swedish playwright is not interested in the boundaries of the moral freedom of the strong, who finds himself surrounded by the weak, but in the possibilities of the strong, who must act next to someone equally strong, imbued with the same passion for self-affirmation. It turns out that these possibilities are quite insignificant. But the smaller the battlefield, the fiercer it is. According to the unchanging rules of the game that operate in Strindberg's plays, the battle between opponents can only end with the death of one of them - the one who was previously exhausted, blinded by the blows dealt to him, strangled by his own hatred 75. It’s as if the blood of the frantic and vengeful heroes of the Volsung Saga flows in the veins of Strindberg’s heroes with their appearance as modern townspeople. And the whole atmosphere of the plays of August Strindberg, one of the luminaries of the new drama, makes us recall the gloomy, cruel, fatally tragic world of the Scandinavian sagas 76. (Strindberg is occupied with problems that are, to one degree or another, relevant for all European literature of his time. But in his plays one can feel northern Swedish temperament and Swedish flavor.His heroes are characterized by isolation and cordiality, petty admiration for the social hierarchy and an extreme degree of spiritual independence, adherence to prim everyday life and the uncontrollability of arrogant melancholy dreams 77.)

The constant paradox of Strindberg's dramaturgy, which determines its grotesque nature, is that the heroes of the Swedish writer, with all their flaming individualism, are no longer suitable for the role of conquerors of life, although they try to play this role, especially traditional for a Scandinavian, hardened in the fight against nature, accustomed to relying only on himself. They are full of indomitable energy, ready for the most extreme and most decisive actions, but there is always something that they cannot understand and about which they are only vaguely aware (lack of will? burdensome refinement of the soul? a strong opponent?), interferes with the implementation of their warlike intentions. Extraordinary people, born to fight and command, they ultimately find themselves losers, in humiliating slavish dependence on the will of others.

The ambitious artillery captain in “The Dance of Death” never received the rank of major that was long due to him. His book about the shooting remained unsold. King Eric XIV tyrannizes his loved ones, but is not sure of his royal destiny and cannot rein in his enemies. “The Road to Damascus” begins with Byronic rebellion, superhuman claims, tyrant-fighting and god-fighting motives, and ends with capitulation. Exhausted, brought to the brink of madness, the Unknown renounces his ambitious and brilliant plans, humbles his pride and retires to a monastery.

The characters in Strindberg's plays are failed Vikings, failed victors, invaders forced to retreat and retreat. They do not admit defeat to themselves or others, hiding and compensating for their vulnerability with extreme aggressiveness in casual love dialogue or boring family quarrels, and with a constant and tiresome readiness to fight back. As the traditional individualistic mode of action becomes less and less accessible, less effective outside, in a society where there is no longer room for personal independence and initiative, this generally accepted, this offensive mode of action, having in mind the enemy-competitor, all takes deeper roots in marriage, in intimate, lyrical relationships; The constantly fanned flame of rivalry burns out the feeling of love and turns the house into ashes, which should serve as a shelter from the storms of life. In marriage, the hero affirms the principle of militant individualism, which did not give him success in the public sphere. This unnatural grotesque situation, in contrast to love and family conflicts known to us from the European novel of the 19th century, essentially does not imply any benefit - property or class interests.

In Danse Macabre, Strindberg's central drama, the situation of unmotivated and apparently aimless hostility is sharpened in every possible way. The first part of the play shows the relationship of the three, built on love-hate. In the second, hostile actions begin between the characters, well known to us from the literature of the last century: the heroes dispute inheritance rights, fight for a deputy seat, and accuse each other of abuses in office. But in their usual actions, causes and consequences are unusually reversed. Dramatic characters quarrel not as a result of a clash of monetary or career interests. On the contrary, monetary, career, and especially love interests do not interest anyone; they are used as an excuse, as a weapon, in order to annoy another and cause him pain. In "The Father" the wife declares her husband crazy. She makes him incompetent not at all in order to take possession of his fortune, which would be the motive in such a case for a greedy bourgeoisie, a character in the literature of the last century. The wife upsets her husband's mental faculties and brings him to death only in order to establish her authority in the house - so that the husband does not exert moral influence on his daughter.

In Strindberg, the enmity between a man and a woman is truly disinterested in nature, acquiring voluptuous, tormenting, manic features. The mania of dramatic heroes is the fear of losing their individuality. The fewer opportunities to build a life according to one’s own understanding and plan, the more elusive independence is in the face of society, the more fiercely Strindberg’s heroes defend it in marital relationships, directing their weakening forces in this direction, spending their exhausted, ossified mind on it.

The development of dialogue in Strindberg's plays is that the subtext quickly and inevitably becomes the text. The usual prim ritual of verbal communication is continually broken by the furious pressure of the subtext, in which the mutual hatred of the characters burns. And when the ritual is crushed, the heroes finish everything to the end, to the point of exhaustion, to the point of fainting, not sparing themselves, unable to stop. What other authors of the new drama have is text, Strindberg has a fragile, thinned surface layer that cannot withstand the pressure of the red-hot magma of subtext. As the action progresses, the place of dull everyday dialogue-ritual is taken by romantic dialogues-confession and dialogues-denunciation. Dramatic characters expose themselves to each other and hurt each other, sorrowful lamentations are interspersed in their nervous, feverish speeches with malicious sarcasms.

This is how the electric, volatile atmosphere of Strindberg's plays arises.

Like other creators of new drama, Strindberg attaches exceptional importance to “mood” - the general tone and overall color of the stage action. But the mood and atmosphere in his plays arise according to different laws than those of Chekhov or Maeterlinck. In the Russian and Belgian playwrights, each or almost every character is imbued with a general mood, easily and imperceptibly attuned to the general mood. In Maeterlinck, the characters' voices often sound in unison; in Chekhov, they develop more freely and complexly. The same mood captures many of the characters: the atmosphere of fearful expectation in Maeterlinck’s small tragedies or joyful spring hopes in the first act of Chekhov’s plays. Strindberg's is not like that at all.

The mood of any episode is determined by one of two things: the one who is in the best position at the moment, who leads the game, makes his best move and seems to win the game. In the next episode, the initiative may pass to the enemy, and then he will begin to impose his mood on the other, creating the appropriate atmosphere. A change in mood occurs depending on which of the partners is stronger at the moment and is able to influence the other - to hypnotize the other. Strindberg's mood is also a sphere of influence for which there is a constant struggle.

In “Freken Julia,” this type of human relationship is understood, perhaps too literally, with a certain degree of straightforwardness, but also extremely clearly. Lackey Jean, having received the attention of the count's daughter, feels both frightened and flattered. He obsequiously plays along with her excited mood - her girlish whims, and then, having seduced her, putting her in a position of moral dependence, he subjugates her to his influence. The characters in the play remember a visiting hypnotist and his assistant, who obediently followed all the orders of his master. Jean and Miss Julia start a game of chance, where the role of the hypnotist is assigned to an arrogant footman, and the role of a medium is assigned to the ardent count's daughter. Jean influences her like a hypnotist - he determines the state of her spirit and her line of behavior. He brings the girl who has lost herself to the breaking point, hands her a deadly blade and orders her to go to the stable and kill herself. In later plays there is no this naive excess of sociological and biological accents, but the same deadly nature of human relations, the same struggle between two people is preserved: they are vitally interested in one another and are alienated from each other; they do not dare to move far from one another, so as not to be left alone, and are afraid to come together closely, so as not to lose the sense of their own personality, they strive with all their might to defend their individuality - their freedom - and want to take it away from the other person closest to themselves. Consequently, the impression of the disinterested nature of the hostility that flares up between the main characters in Strindberg's plays turns out to be not entirely accurate. There may be self-interest here, but of a special nature. The individualistic interest of the characters is to subordinate the partner to their influence and in this way, through another person humiliated and insulted by you, to calm down their own wounded “I” and finally achieve a sweet feeling of triumph in the struggle of life. The relationship between a man and a woman - if they have an equally developed sense of their own personality, if the woman has become emancipated and no longer wants to be her husband's slave - turns into an eternal duel, into a grueling battle of galley galleys, inseparable, inseparable, hating each other with a terrible, hopeless hatred. The struggle for independence - for living space - in Strindberg's plays becomes a mental illness, a process of ruthless self-destruction.

Strindberg’s “will to power” is carried out in the family arena, in a hopeless struggle between two people, as a result of which it takes on as many tragic as petty, affected-theatrical forms. Strindberg's hero needs another, both as a partner whom he must defeat and as an audience before whom he can show off. The smaller the field for satisfying individualistic passions, the more theatrical in nature they acquire - this observation of the Swedish playwright finds an analogy in Dostoevsky and casts an unexpected light on the nature of Nietzscheanism. Later, the same motif is repeated several times in O'Neill's plays. Thus, in the behavior of Strindberg’s dramatic characters it is easy to notice another shade, which, in fact, gives the plays of the Swedish playwright their strange, bewitching charm. The struggle of the dramatic characters, despite the fact that it is of a rather nervous and ferocious nature, contains an element of play.

Strindberg seems to be the most intransigent of the authors of the new drama. None of them, not even Bernard Shaw, broke with the old theatrical system so irrevocably 78. Meanwhile, the playful principle, highly characteristic of the plays of the Swedish playwright - enlightening their gloomy coloring, unexpectedly indicates a closeness to the Renaissance theater. There is a truly aesthetic element of improvisation and disinterest in the actions of Strindberg's dramatic characters. They play with themselves and each other, extracting theatrical possibilities from the flattest everyday life. Where a bourgeois scandal is brewing in Hauptmann, the Swedish playwright begins a dangerous and exciting game. The purpose of the game, unnamed, barely realized, is to add intensity to a dull, joyless existence, to introduce into it an element of competition and adventure, to create the opportunity - or appearance - of the free expression of vital forces.

In the Renaissance theater, the principle of play goes back to widespread folk festivities; through play, untried life opportunities make themselves felt. But in Strindberg, the game is limited to the cramped walls of home and the dialogue of two people, forever doomed to each other and their fate. In the ancient theater the game belongs to the sphere of the carnival holiday; in Strindberg it forms an integral part of everyday life. The heroes of Shakespeare's comedies stage their games while traveling, in distant fairy-tale lands - in the open air, in a magical forest, on a magical summer night. Strindberg's character plays - rushes about - in his room, like a lion in a cage. The invigorating playful element of the Renaissance theater is supported by the spiritual properties of the characters and circumstances favorable to them. One can say about the hero of Shakespeare or Lope de Vega that he himself creates—organizes—his own adventures. And we can say that adventures happen to him. For Strindberg, play is always a consequence of personal initiative, an irritated and unstable state of mind. In the game played by his dramatic characters, not everything, of course, is done by inspiration; sometimes you can feel both experience and calculation in it - we see how skillfully opponents reflect other people’s blows and how quickly they think about their own moves. But the game does not arise by calculation, not by the whim of a sophisticated or ironic mind, it begins with anguish, involuntarily and unintentionally, like a dangerous whim, like a fever.

The principle of play is manifested in Strindberg's plays in both meanings - purely sporting and purely theatrical: play as a competition, like a gladiator fight, where one of the opponents must inevitably die, and play as fun, performance, improvisation - the fruit of the whimsical and wild imagination of the actor. A game of combat, which should end in the victory of one and the defeat of the other, and a game of entertainment, which itself contains its ultimate goal. Sometimes one meaning is so closely connected with another that it is impossible to separate them, and sometimes they appear to us separately. The constant alternating flickering of two meanings of the same concept is itself playful in nature and further complicates the theatrical nature of Strindberg's dramaturgy.

The combination of psychological sophistication with the principle of play (according to Strindberg, a sign of modern consciousness), given that the game arises as a result of this psychological sophistication, gives the plays of the Swedish playwright a sharp artistry; It is no coincidence that a ballet was created based on Strindberg’s most popular dramatic work, Miss Julia.

(In Strindberg's later plays - "The Road to Damascus" or "Ghost Sonata" - the game takes on conventional forms, close to symbolist theater. Deprived of its improvisational and spontaneous character, the play beginning in these plays has a given, ominously predetermined character - it is not so much the people who play, how much some higher speculative forces play with them. And in the best plays of Strindberg, the characters themselves start their own dangerous game and are ready to play to the end, taking upon themselves all the consequences of a possible loss.)

Subsequent authors developed this type of human relationships more alienated and lyrical - for example, Pirandello in “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, more humane and plastic - for example, Fellini in “The Road”, more unambiguous and grotesque - for example, Beckett, more elemental and playful - for example, Albee in “I'm Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf”; more subtle and broad, with greater subtext - for example, Bergman in "Face" or in "Shame"; more reverent and hopeful - for example, Osborne in Look Back in Anger; or even more dark and monumental - for example, O’Neill in several of his plays; but in principle they all proceeded from the same premises as the Swedish writer.

In order to show from the stage this, barely noticeable to an outsider's eye and at the same time intense struggle between two people, loving, trembling with hatred, standing close to each other, it is necessary to extremely narrow the stage space, bring the stage characters as close as possible to the audience, showing them all the time close-up. And we need a new acting technique. Strindberg expects from actors, firstly, naturalness, secondly, expression and, thirdly, musicality, meaning that they should hear the complex melody of their character, and the melody of the one who is next to them, and the melody of the performance in in general. Strindberg's main idea is that performers must find support from one another. He claims that “the actors are in each other’s hands,” just like the characters in his plays. The one who speaks at the moment is as important as the one who is silent and listens intently: the first, the one who influences another, is no more interesting to the viewer than the one who experiences someone else's influence. Indeed, in the next moment these two will change places. That is why the most important thing on stage is the continuity of spiritual life, giving rise to the general oscillating melody of action. The requirements, which are now taken for granted, defining the basics of the art of acting, then, in the last decades of the 19th century, sounded boldly, in the spirit of the approaching theatrical revolution.

Strindberg believed that the monumental forms of the old theater were hopelessly outdated and remind us not of modern life, but of hoary antiquity, when the theater was a place of religious national celebrations. He dreamed of a completely different theater, where on a modest small stage, with nothing - no ramp, no orchestra - separated from the auditorium, with strong side lighting, which is aimed at the faces of the actors and allows you to see their facial expressions, short, chamber, sophisticated -psychological plays (subsequently such intimate theaters appeared in many countries).

In Strindberg's plays, as we already know, the living space in which modern man can realize himself is increasingly narrowing. Thus, the idea of ​​a small stage space takes on a directly sociological meaning. For the heroes of the Renaissance drama, the battlefield was the whole world; for Strindberg’s heroes, the battlefield was their own home, their native land, and the worst enemy was a woman, a wife, the only close person in an infinitely long distance of life. Just as the theatrical hero used to fight with the whole world - and in this sense, the world, as we know, was also a theater, a theater of military operations - so now he is doomed to fight with his lifelong friend, without respite, without hope of success. Strindberg's chamber plays, where two or three actors act, are inflamed with such furious passion and filled with such undeniable drama that they produce on us no less grandiose an impression than the most extensive of Shakespeare's historical chronicles or the multi-figured ancient frieze, which depicts the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons. And Strindberg's historical dramas, wide-ranging and with many characters, create the impression of intimate works and develop in a closed, compressed space. One is likened to the other and equated to the other: the battle between a man and a woman reaches historical proportions, and conflicts affecting classes and states have the character of a painful family quarrel.

Since Strindberg is primarily concerned with the destructive influence of one human individuality on another, changes in the mental state of the dramatic characters are also decisive in his plays. Everything else in the plays of the Swedish playwright can be done sketchily, with the carelessness characteristic of the impressionistic manner, but the whimsical, painful line of psychological development is always carried out clearly and carefully, although not intrusively - without pressure, without self-confident professional pedantry.

August Strindberg boldly - and carefully - transferred the artistic discoveries made in plays from modern life into works built on historical subjects, and thus gave his theatrical aesthetics a more universal character. In the cycle of historical dramas, he partly repeats the structure and motives of Shakespeare's chronicles. It is all the more obvious how far its protagonists are from Shakespeare’s heroes, supporters of the Scarlet and White Rose. The hero of his historical dramas, no matter how powerful and active he is, is nothing more than a toy in the hands of circumstances. It depends on the struggle of parties, dynastic disputes, class contradictions - on the desires of relatives and the mood of the people. He is entangled in a network of voluntarily assumed moral obligations: religious institutions, family attachments and friendly accounts. And most importantly, I am not confident in myself, in my right. His strength is not spent on preserving the throne - on the hopeless defense of personal independence and spiritual freedom.

Strindberg showed in his plays a new type of human relationships, built on mutual affection and mutual torment, and a new hero - a weak-willed tyrant, a persecuted persecutor, an oppressed despot, more tragic than funny; in his pettiness traits of greatness appear, in his malice one feels a homeless, defenseless soul. About Eric XIV, one of the characters who sympathizes with him says: “his soul is a little split.” In turn, Eric says about one of his confidants: “... he could be called Mr. Here and Here, he is full of a sense of justice and lawlessness; brave like few and cowardly like a hare; faithful as a dog and deceitful as a cat.” Eric could say something similar about himself. Eric is an in-between, torn apart, multidirectional person: he is gentle and rude, affectionate and arrogant, longs for self-affirmation as a king and is burdened by his royal duties. He kindles arrogant individualistic claims in his soul and cannot bear the burden of his own individualism. The Swedish king, a contemporary of Ivan the Terrible, speaks about the unsuccessful marriage of his parents, about his rude father and unhappy mother in the words of the easily wounded hero of Maupassant’s story: “Once I saw him swing a stick at her... (Screams.) At my mother and... hit her ! From this day my youth ended...”

Apparently, Strindberg, the only one of the authors of the new drama, neglected the concept of environment. His heroes suffer not so much from the tyranny or vulgarity of those around them, but from their own quarrelsomeness. In addition, the plays of the Swedish playwright, dedicated to modern life, explore a microcosm in which only two people actually act, shown to us intimately - in close-up. The environment remains unidentified, if only because it does not fit into the frame. But in Strindberg's historical plays it is much broader than in any of the other contemporary playwrights. In works from modern life, the environment is embodied in the “other” person standing next to him, and in “Engelbrekt” (1901), “Gustav Vas” (1899), “Eric XIV” (1899) or “Christina” (1903) the environment is the whole society, from the king to the pauper. The individualistic hero in Strindberg's historical dramas seems to act independently of and in defiance of his environment; in fact, the environment entangles him in its networks. Sooner or later it turns out that the hero, even if vested with power, is just the resultant of various social forces directed at him and applied to him. Miner Engelbrekt wants to remain loyal to the Danish king, but worsening social contradictions force him to rebel against his sovereign. Queen Christina is sure that the common people love her, but she is destined to be convinced of the hatred of the people of the third estate and respond to them with the same feeling. Eric XIV cannot become a strong king, he has no one to rely on, because influential courtiers belong to warring political parties. What can I say, Eric has a torn soul, but isn’t the society he is called to rule torn apart?

From “Engelbrekt”, “Eric XIV” or “Christine” it is clear why Strindberg’s proud hero, jealously guarding his independence, must sooner or later leave the public field - the laws of historical necessity and large numbers reign there. Strindberg's vast dramas depicting Sweden's past are a direct precursor to his chamber plays of contemporary life. On the other hand, the narrowing of the arena of life’s struggle, experienced so hiddenly and so painfully by Strindberg’s ambitious heroes, finds a well-known analogy in the historical fate of their kingdom, which gradually lost its international significance, its territories and great-power ambitions.

In the remarkable preface to Miss Julia, the most profound and concise of all the theoretical manifestos of the new drama movement, Strindberg, in particular, puts forward a new concept of dramatic character - in contrast to that which was gradually developed in the Renaissance theatrical system. He speaks disapprovingly of overly defined (like Moliere's) theatrical characters, contrasting them with the character of his Miss Julia. Her sad fate is determined by a number of motives. “This complexity of motives,” Strindberg declares, “I am proud of as very modern.” 79 He is happy that his heroes do not correspond to the usual and seemingly unshakable ideas about dramatic character: “... as for the depiction of characters, I depicted the characters rather “characterless” for the reasons I outline below.

The word “character” has changed its meaning over time. Originally it meant the predominant and fundamental feature of the mental complex and was confused with temperament. Subsequently, among the middle classes it became the definition of an automaton. A person who once and for all remained with his natural gifts or assumed a certain role in life, in a word, stopped growing, was called a person with “character.” But a person who continued to develop, a skilled swimmer on the waves of life, who did not sail on fixed sails, but lowered them before a squall in order to raise them again, was called “characterless”, of course, in the humiliating sense of the word, since it was very difficult to catch him, to register and secure.

The bourgeois concept of the immobility of the soul also transferred to the stage, where the bourgeoisie always reigned. The character there was considered to be a gentleman for whom everything was decided and signed, who invariably appeared drunk, sometimes in a joking, sometimes in a gloomy mood. To characterize it, it was enough to give some kind of physical defect - a crooked side, a wooden leg, a red nose - or force a person to constantly repeat the same expression, for example: “it was gallant,” “with our pleasure,” etc. This feature of looking at people was simply characteristic of the great Moliere. Harpagon is only a miser, although he could be a miser and at the same time an outstanding financier, an excellent father, a good public figure - and what’s even worse is that his “flaw” greatly benefits his son-in-law and daughter, who will inherit the inheritance, and they do not should complain even if they had to suffer a little in receiving it. That's why I don't believe in simple theatrical characters. The author's general judgments of people: that one is stupid, that one is rude, that one is jealous, that one is stingy, etc. - should be rejected by a naturalist who knows how rich the mental complex is, and feels that “vice” often has a reverse side, very similar to virtue.

As modern characters living in a transitional era, more fussy and hysterical than at least the previous one, I depicted my figures as more unstable, bifurcated, representing a mixture of old and new” 80.

For Strindberg, as for Chekhov, Shaw or Hauptmann, the original predetermination, the excessive definiteness of a dramatic character, corresponding to one or another role, flavored (balanced) with harsh and vulgar everyday character, is not only an outdated theatrical convention, but also an outdated, archaic, bourgeois limited concept of personality.

The Swedish writer believed that the joy of life lies in “strong, cruel struggle.” And accordingly, he was convinced that a modern playwright should portray complex people, since they are more capable of struggle and more skillfully swim in the waves of life than some tradesman with a flat, immobile character, who conveniently adapts to a certain role. However, in his plays something completely different happens. Here those with a subtler and richer soul lose, find themselves in a hopeless situation, go crazy, and narrow natures—the “simple characters” so despised by the author—win.

Lackey Jean takes precedence over Miss Julia because he is of a more elementary nature, his behavior is limited to one or two fairly obvious motives. In “The Father,” the mother’s victory is predetermined to the extent that all her thoughts are focused on the struggle for power and limited to the home circle. She strives for her aggressive goal like an arrow shot from a bow, while her husband, a famous scientist, is devoted to various interests - his science, his books, his official duties. The father is too complex, too civilized, too rich a nature to defeat the mother, who acts at the call of animal instinct and is closer to low bourgeois practice. The death of his father can be explained by several motives, but the true reason for his tragedy is not in one or another motive for his behavior, but in the fact that there were too many motives.

Eric XIV feels weak around other people. He is depressed by the difficult circumstances of his life and the intransigence of those around him. Eric's enemies and well-wishers - the old queen who hates and despises him, the chancellor, devoted to him to the grave - are driven in their actions by certain interests, belong to one party or another and have no doubts in the fight. Compared to these straightforward, gloomy people, Eric XIV seems like a cantankerous child. Even Karin, his submissive lover, a commoner whom he brought closer to him, treats him like a minor. She calls him by the name of her doll and says that she is attached to him like a child. At the end of the play, having lost everything in the world, King Eric plays with his children with dolls. People close to Eric behave expediently and decisively - they fight, fight for power, defend inheritance rights and class interests. And he is capricious, plays pranks, indulges in impossible dreams, pouts his lips, falls into black melancholy. The play begins with Eric, like a boy, throwing flower pots from the window at the heads of the courtiers, and ends with the senseless massacre that he carries out in the basements of his royal castle. Eric's cruel and generous actions bear the stamp of inappropriate infantilism. According to Strindberg, the ill-fated Swedish king is Shakespeare's Prince Henry, who did not want to settle down and streamline his life, and did not realize his high royal destiny. Eric is not fit to be king because he is not one-sided enough and not mature enough. He recklessly, like a child, changes his decisions and allows himself to have fun where a man, a ruler, should be serious - sitting on the throne with a frowning brow. Eric XIV is surrounded by warlike, arrogant nobles, rude commoners - people who know no doubts; in comparison with them, the young king looks undignified and unfounded.

The tragedy of Eric XIV is the tragedy of infantile consciousness in a hopelessly serious, hopelessly senile world.

In Strindberg's chamber plays two people fight each other, in historical dramas everyone fights everyone else. The enmity between people who represent different classes and political groups and at the same time are connected to each other by close family ties reaches unprecedented frenzy in Eric XIV. The non-actors are a ball of snakes. The young king is unhappy because all people are enemies. Like an embittered, abandoned child, he suffers because people do not love him, and, like a child, he competes with them in hatred.

The tragedy of Eric XIV is the tragedy of the abandoned.

To succeed in the struggle, the courtiers unite in parties. King Eric shuns everyone and truly wants only one thing - personal independence. He doesn't want to be with those and he doesn't want to be with those.

The tragedy of Eric XIV is the tragedy of an outsider.

Eric fears loyal people even more than enemies - he is afraid of falling under the influence of his chancellor, his beloved, his people. (And tyrannizes others in order to prevent them from tyrannizing themselves.) The desire for personal independence in Eric XIV, as in the chamber plays of August Strindberg, takes on a frantic, unbalanced, fitful character.

The tragedy of Eric XIV is the tragedy of a persecuted pursuer.

In "The Father" or "Dance of Death" the hero dies defending his independence from another. King Eric dies defending his independence from a society torn apart by contradictions - in the face of warring classes and parties. Eric's captive, freedom-loving, childish soul is being torn apart by people and circumstances, people and passions - just like the nomads tore the body of a defeated enemy, tying him to the tails of two horses and driving them in different directions.

The tragedy of Eric XIV is the tragedy of a torn consciousness.

As we see, the death of King Eric can be explained by a number of motives. The multiplicity of motives is the true reason for his tragedy.

Eric does not want to base his actions on the interests of one or another political group (and his own political interests), just as he does not want to build his actions in accordance with any one, voluntarily chosen motive. He is terrified of falling under the power of some driving motive and, thus, losing personal freedom. But under the influence of many competing motives, his carefully guarded “I” is destroyed, losing any tangible outline.

Eric XIV gives a new interpretation of Hamletism and the whole old individualistic concept of personality.

According to Strindberg, Hamletism is a problem of the plurality of motives that inevitably guide every extraordinary person in his actions.

Like Prince Hamlet, King Eric is torn by conflicting intentions and feelings.

Just as Don Juan refuses to limit his amorous desires to one woman, so Eric refuses to limit his behavior to one motive. Don Juan is the master of his passions while he changes his mistresses; if he belongs to one woman, he will turn into a slave of passion.

Like Peer Gynt, Eric does not dare to stop this or that moment of his existence, does not want to completely surrender to one of his life roles, one of his driving motives, and rushes headlong into the whirlpool of a romantic, empty and destructive game of several contradictory aspirations.

For Strindberg's heroes, the problem is not that they cannot choose, but that they refuse to choose, believing that any choice impoverishes and monotonizes the personality, deprives its action of an aesthetic element and ultimately suppresses its freedom. Only in this purely romantic sense can we say that they also “choose.”

Some features of Strindberg's biography and spiritual make-up help us clarify the psychological meaning of the theme of torn consciousness, which constantly sounds in his work. As you know, August Strindberg was the son of a servant and an aristocratic entrepreneur. His father went broke, then got his business back on track. The future writer came into close contact with the upper and lower classes, lived sometimes in prosperity, sometimes in poverty, leading the existence of a poor man and a barchuk, the son of wealthy parents. He early learned the value of the privileges of noble birth and wealth, as well as the indignities of poverty and low rank 81 . (Subsequently, his geographical location was just as unstable: he lived sometimes in Sweden, sometimes abroad, in many countries.) The dual nature of his social origin left its mark on Strindberg’s impressionable soul, as he himself speaks about in the autobiographical novel “The Handmaid’s Son.” “The boy saw the splendor of the highest class from afar. He yearns for it as if it were his homeland, but his mother’s slave blood rebelled against this. He instinctively bows down to the upper class in order to be able to join its ranks. He feels like he doesn't belong there. But there is no place among slaves. This brings division into his whole life.” The son of a plebeian, he did not consider himself obligated to curry favor with ordinary people; coming from a wealthy family, he did not hesitate to speak the most merciless truth about the ruling class. He had the right to feel like he belonged both among the privileged and among the outcasts. On the other hand, he could not identify himself with either one or the other. He claimed to be both a plebeian and an aristocrat of spirit, but did not truly feel that he belonged to either the higher or the lower strata of society. (Mistress Julia wanders between the master's chambers and the people's quarters; the contemptuous, pampered Eric XIV brings people from the third estate closer to him and invites wild bastards to feast in his castle.) The position was just as painfully unstable! Strindberg regarding the prevailing spiritual trends and political concepts. He began as a democrat - became an enemy of the majority, an admirer of the spiritual aristocracy and the strong man; nevertheless, Strindberg's plebeian character and humanity came into constant conflict with his Nietzschean aspirations. He was a Protestant and became close to Catholicism. He believed in God, preached atheism, and then religion. But, in essence, he was never either a zealous atheist or an exemplary Christian. In his atheism lived the spirit of self-confident intolerant sectarianism, which he could have inherited from his pietist mother, his religiosity took on the forms of mystical occultism, sometimes closer to medieval alchemy than to any of the officially recognized creeds. In his younger years, his beliefs, in his own words, were a conglomeration of “romanticism, pietism, realism and naturalism.” He did not want to be (and was not) a consistent naturalist or symbolist, striving in this sense to gain an independent position for himself. He rebelled against other people's suggestions as fiercely as against his own ideas, when he began to suspect that they threatened his spiritual freedom, acquiring too much dogmatic power over him. Strindberg's constant wanderings were nothing more than a hopeless search for absolute freedom, the same desperate struggle for personal independence that obsessed his heroes. He was also burdened by the restrictions imposed on the individual by the modern division of labor. Like the people of the Renaissance, he wanted to be (and was) a writer, a theater worker, a painter, and a scientist, excelling in various fields of science - from natural history to sinology. The writer's personality was reflected especially clearly in his works, because his work is largely autobiographical in nature. But, of course, the theme of torn consciousness, which sounds so intensely in Strindberg, in its content goes beyond the boundaries of personal confession, turning into a romantic confession of the son of the century, reflecting the deep crisis of traditional European humanism.

A theorist of the new drama, an admirer of Darwin and Zola, Strindberg attacked the romantics who tried to revive the grandiose poetic forms of the Renaissance theater in the changed historical conditions. But his own theoretical premises mark him out as a neo-romantic. The idea of ​​a life struggle in which an outstanding, richly gifted personality capable of self-development must win is utopian in nature. As a playwright, he portrayed things in a much darker light. The further he went, the poorer the opportunities available to man in modern society seemed to him. The romantic concept of personality in Strindberg's plays comes into conflict with a sober understanding of existing reality. And yet, as befits a romantic, he proceeds in his works from the subjective motives of an individual individual, warmed by his own lyrical feeling, and not from an objective system of human relations, as other authors of the new drama usually did. In his plays, as in Rembrandt’s paintings, the light falls on a person’s face, and everything else, although present on the stage in the highest degree of authenticity, is immersed in twilight. In his main characters, as in O’Neill’s heroes, behind their current appearance, through features disfigured by the fruitless struggle of life, frozen in a gloomy or sarcastic grimace of bitter suffering, the former undistorted appearance always appears - the “archetype” of a natural person. The contradiction between the present and past properties of a person, his disfigured and true appearance forms one of the most painful moving and playful motifs of Strindberg's dramaturgy.

The ideal of a complex, and therefore not bourgeois, not bourgeois personality, as it seemed to the Swedish writer, is expressed in Queen Christina, the heroine of the historical drama of the same name. Christina is an aristocrat of spirit not because she is a queen, but because even the royal role seems narrow to her. The duties of the empress constrain her rich nature. She does not want to submit to any restrictions - neither those imposed on her by her high social position, nor those dictated by her belonging to the weaker sex. She is the embodiment of femininity - not a single courtier can resist her gentle, meek voice, but she can also speak harshly - like a man. She equally suits the light antique clothes of the goddess Pandora, whom she plans to portray in the ballet, and the warlike costume of the Amazon - with a sword on her side. She is kind and merciless, generous and vengeful, obeying her mood, and not considerations of state benefit or personal safety. The one who talks to her today does not know how he will find her tomorrow, at the next meeting. Christina does not want to be drilled in the name of any higher or lower practical considerations. In the end, she prefers to give up the throne rather than force herself—her individuality. One of her admirers, responding to the reproaches of those around her, tormented by the queen’s changeable and free temperament, says: “Tailor Holm and insignificant people like him have only one facial expression, but Christel has a legion of them. Because she is not a person, but the whole world.” A successful tailor, a typical face in typical circumstances, always has the same - a tailor's - expression on his face and a tailor's way of thinking. Holm's personality fit freely within the boundaries of his craft workshop. And even the borders of her kingdom are too small for Christine. The ruler of Sweden, she considers herself a patriot of Germany, she rules a Protestant country, and sympathizes with Catholicism. Christina does not want to be either a wise helmsman, or a zealous Protestant, or a submissive wife, or a devoted lover, or even just a woman - she wants to remain a person, an individual, with all the wealth of possibilities inherent in her, and forever reserve the right to choose - and the right change your choice. Christina's renunciation is nothing more than a rebellion against the alienation - narrowing - of the individual, inevitable under any, even the most royal, division of labor.

(The story of Queen Christina or King Eric XIV is not the story of the struggle of people for state power, but the story of the fall of man from the state.)

Christina differs from other people in her artistry. The twenty-six-year-old beauty - the Queen of Sweden - is passionate about art, spends a lot of money on staging ballets, but this is the true essence of her artistry: Christina is not afraid to play in life - with her lovers, her enemies, other people's destinies and her own destiny. And even if she gets confused in her exciting and daring improvisations, she is sure that this is still better than succumbing to drill and following a once and for all established course of action based on expediency alone. Christina rebels against the rational, unambiguous, positivist attitude towards life, which kills the variety of play opportunities contained in it. From this perspective, the frivolous Queen of Sweden resembles the frivolous landowner Ranevskaya, although Chekhov's heroine, of course, does not have this Nietzschean fury and pride.

The spiritual traits characteristic of Queen Christina are not alien to the characters in other plays by Strindberg. The hero of the Swedish playwright is truly a man who plays. He puts his dangerous, sharp game above considerations of peace of mind or practical benefits. Still, Strindberg's other heroes cannot, like Christina, royally renounce their social position and their life situation. They hate the conditions of their existence, but are unable to change them. Unlike Queen Christina, they are forced to play in the proposed circumstances for the rest of their days.

The irreconcilable, proud Scandinavian Strindberg watched with despair as his country crawled into a narrow bourgeois life and froze in the monotonous, flat forms of bourgeois life, leaving no room for an individual course of action. Under these unfavorable conditions, complexity of character (according to Strindberg, a sign of an active and artistic nature) turns into a tragic duality of the soul.

Strindberg's hero is unable to assert his own will - and does not want to submit to someone else's will, unable to act alone - and cannot act together, thirsts for love - and fans the fire of hatred, is ready to open his heart to everyone - and to suspect everyone of evil intent, absolutely incapable “living alone and living with someone” 82. In the plays of the Swedish playwright, the characters are not so much individualists as martyrs of individualism (“The Great Martyr of Individualism” is the title of Lunacharsky’s article about August Strindberg). Strindberg's people are no longer capable of reckless aggressive actions in the name of any specific goals, but they also cannot refuse the individualistic mode of action accepted in society, sanctified by all the experience and ideals of the new time. Accordingly, flashes of hope and energy are replaced by a period of decline. Extremely intense, charged with the forces of attraction and repulsion, filled with innocence and deceit, fiery lyricism and cruel mocking sarcasm, Strindberg's dramatic dialogue testifies to the impossibility of preserving traditional human connections, as well as establishing new ones, on other, non-individualistic grounds. Strindberg's characters, although they seem ready to tear each other to pieces, are no longer capable of real confrontation, unable to position themselves in the living space as usual, as befits dramatic characters - against each other, with weapons in their hands - they are too interested for this ( need one another too much. At the same time, they cannot join hands, find a common language, a common tone; “communication” in the deep and full sense of this concept, which it received from Chekhov and Stanislavsky, is in no way given to them. For them, the arrogant isolation of the individualist and the choral unifying principle are equally inaccessible.

It remains to be said that, exploring the problem of the crisis of individualism with the care of a scientist, subjecting it to a dispassionate and comprehensive analysis, Strindberg presents it extremely intensely, with unprecedented, often frightening sincerity of lyrical expression. In Strindberg’s chamber, psychologically sophisticated, “marivodazhny” plays, illuminated by his clear mind, showing us the complex play of opposing aspirations and passions, the following sound; confessional motives and such destructive and hysterical feelings rage that herald a future expressionist drama 83 . Yet the problem of expressionism, as reliably demonstrated by the work of Strindberg (and, say, the later work of Alban Berg), is not a problem of too frank or too heightened feelings, but first of all the problem of a wounded soul and a torn, split consciousness. (In this light, the long-established and completely natural opinion of Strindberg as an artist who moved from naturalism to expressionism does not seem very accurate. For that matter, there is more genuine expressionism in the playwright’s “naturalistic” opuses than in some of his later works , which in their external features are closer to the expressionist style.)

As romantics, individualists, people with an exaggerated idea of ​​their capabilities, Strindberg's heroes are ready to challenge all of humanity to battle, just to assert their will - to insist on their own.

Like characters in a naturalistic drama, acting in certain, strictly determined circumstances, they are forced to limit their militant claims to the family circle.

Like expressionist heroes, people with a defenseless, naked, wounded soul, they suffer a crushing defeat in the struggle of life, which they so romanticize and place so highly. But, unlike the heroes of later expressionist works, Strindberg's characters never come across as victims; they fight to the end, again and again provoking the situation of battle, constantly escalating, falling and rising again.

Strindberg's dramaturgy is far from being limited to the possibilities of expressionism, but Strindberg outlined the boundaries of expressionism quite accurately. As a result of the World War, expressionism received new motives and new incentives for development, seemingly not foreseen by the Swedish playwright. In fact, the war only clarifies the meaning of his dark, heartbreaking prophecies. There was much in Strindberg besides expressionism. But expressionism as such is August Strindberg, which, by the way, was perfectly understood by Vakhtangov and Mikhail Chekhov in Eric XIV, a play that was staged after the First World War and the October Revolution 84.

With the plays of the Swedish playwright, new features appear in modern theater, which were later developed by many authors 85.

As a romantic, Strindberg starts from the concept of the individual, not the environment. Therefore, he could never, even in his early period, become a devout naturalist. On the other hand, his analytical mind and his inherent piercing, almost painful sense of reality made him alien to symbolist aesthetics. Ibsen's impressive constructions and Maeterlinck's lyrical miniatures are equally far from him. He created his own style and his own type of drama, in which confessional motives are sharpened, objectified and become the subject of fearless psychological study.

Strindberg's dramaturgy had a strong, in a certain sense, decisive influence on American theater, especially on the work of Eugene O'Neill. Devoted to the idea of ​​active individualism and success in life, Americans in the 20s and 30s experienced a dramatic collision of disappointment in the possibilities of the individual, extremely close to the one that Strindberg captured at the turn of the century. Until now, the experience of the Swedish writer has not lost its most vivid meaning for Americans. One of the modern American fantasies based on Strindberg's themes is I'm Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the acclaimed play by Edward Albee.

August Strindberg made a stunning impression on his younger contemporaries. Writers belonging to the most diverse movements considered him close to them. There is a ringing note in the words of admiration they spoke to the Swedish writer - they are talking about an artist who captured their imagination and touched their heart. Any of them could, probably, following Blok, call Strindberg a teacher and brother. Moreover, all of them, each in their own way, are quite far from his creative principles.

Gorky said: “August Strindberg was for me the closest person in European literature, the writer who most strongly excited my heart and mind.

Each book aroused his desire to argue with him, to contradict him, and after each book the feeling of love, the feeling of respect for Strindberg became deeper and stronger.

It seemed to me like a boiling spring, the living waters of which excited the creative powers of the heart and mind of everyone who drank even a little of them...

He stood before the phenomena of life, like a commander, and nothing escaped his eagle gaze, everything touched his heart, everything emitted from his soul a consonant echo or a proud cry of protest.

Even in his contradictions, so characteristic of him, he is deeply instructive, and he had the rare quality of an internally free person: he hated dogmas, even those that he himself established.”86

To Alexander Blok, the Swedish writer seemed “like a beacon indicating which path culture would take when creating a new type of person.” The Russian poet called “old Augustus” a “comrade”, a “true democrat”, arguing that he “can have no heirs except humanity” 87.

“The unheard of Strindberg. This rage, these pages gained in a fist fight,” Kafka writes in his diary on August 7, 1914. And in 1915, at the height of the First World War, being in a depressed state, Kafka makes the following confession: “I am not reading it for in order to read, but in order to lie on his chest. He holds me like a child in his left hand." 88

Eugene O’Neill, who wrote about Strindberg already in the 20s, when the reform of American drama and American stage art began, assured that “Strindberg is the harbinger of everything modern in our theater” 89

Thomas Mann delivered a eulogy for the Swedish writer almost four decades after his death, when his work again aroused keen interest. Just like Gorky and Blok once did, Thomas Mann saw in Strindberg a fierce rebel “against the surrounding bourgeois society, in which he was already a stranger” 90

When, in the 50s and 60s, the post-war generation of theater workers discovered the work of August Strindberg, it turned out that many of their artistic discoveries, which they were so proud of and were so amazed at, had long been anticipated and predetermined by the Swedish writer. Moreover, in comparison with a number of his fans and, in a certain sense, followers operating in our contemporary theater, the figure of Strindberg seems much larger. He surpasses the present ones with his rebellious impulses, incomparable in audacity, with his intransigence, and finally, with his aching, proud humanity. And even the contradictions in Strindberg’s worldview and creativity, truly screaming, bleeding contradictions, his throwing, his fierce and compassionate soul, his darkened and festive creativity receive in the eyes of the current Western generation a prophetic meaning and titanic, almost Michelangelo scale, confirming how deeply he penetrated into the antagonisms of his contemporary society, how they shook his powerful, sensitive nature; these antagonisms had yet to develop and fully reveal their disastrous consequences.

Notes.

73. Mann Thomas. Collection op. M., 1961, t. 10, p. 438.

74. Brandes G. Collection. op. Kyiv, 1902, vol. 2, p. 131.

75. “Putted between two alternatives: to kill a woman or to be killed by her, I chose the third - I left my wife, and my first marriage was dissolved,” Strindberg writes about himself (quoted from the book Franklin S. Klaf. Strindberg. N.Y., 1963, p. 92). His heroes often find themselves in the same situation.

76. See: Granovsky T.N. Op. M., 1856, vol. 1, p. 479 - 499.

77. See: Ehrenburg I. Collection. cit.: In 9 volumes. M., 1966, vol. 7, p. 390 - 405.

78. Robert Brustein believes that, apparently, Strindberg is “the most revolutionary mind” in the “theater of rebellion,” the creators of which the critic includes Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht, Pirandello, O’Neill and Genet. See: Brustein Robert. The Theater of Revolt. Boston; Toronto, 1964, p. 87.

79. Strindberg A. Complete. collection op. M., 1910, vol. 1, p. 33.

80. From the preface to the play “Freken Julia”. Quote from the book: Reader on the history of Western theater at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. M.; L., 1939, p. 164.

81. See: Mikhailovsky B.V. Izbr. articles about literature and art. M., 1969, p. 512 - 521.

82. Lunacharsky A.V. Philistinism and individualism. M.; Pg., 1923, p. 228.

83. An analysis of Strindberg’s work in the light of the traditions of European expressionism is given in the book: Dahlstrom Carl E. -W. -L. Strindberg's Dramatic Expressionism. N. Y., 1968.

84. “Vakhtangov reproduced the style of Strindberg’s expressionistic drama - an atmosphere of torn contradictions, painfully heightened sensitivity, obsession, bizarre oddities; the performance was built on disruptive gestures, sudden speeches with unexpected intonations, interruptions in rhythm, impetuous ups and downs, sharp breaks, dissonances” (Mikhailovsky B.V. Selected articles on literature and art, p. 544).

85. The problem of Strindberg’s influence on the theater of the 20th century. A special issue of the magazine “Le Théâtre dans le monde” (1962, v. XI, No. 1) is dedicated. On the influence of Strindberg on Austrian Expressionist composers, see the book: Druskin M. On Western European music of the 20th century. M., 1973, p. 173 - 175.

86. M. Gorky: Materials and research. L., 1934, vol. 1, p. 89.

87. Block A. Collection. op. M., Leningrad, 1962, vol. 5, p. 466, 467, 468.

88. Kafka F. Tagebucher. 1910 - 1923. Frankfurt a. M., 1973, S. 262, 296 (translation by E. Katseva).

89. O’Neill Y. Strindberg and our theater. — In the book: US Writers on Literature. M., 1974, p. 211.

90. Mann Thomas. Collection cit., vol. 10, p. 439.

“Hell is other people,” Jean-Paul Sartre once said. “Hell is ourselves,” one should have proclaimed after reading Strindberg’s play “Dance of Death,” which he created in 1901. The mechanism of the birth of hatred, its ruthless cyclical nature, the ability to irrevocably draw the victim into its cycle are explored by the playwright using the example of a married couple who have approached a certain milestone in their life together - the date of the silver wedding.
Artillery captain Edgar (Stanislavsky Theater artist Mikhail Yanushkevich), an expert in ballistics and the author of an unsold textbook on this science, and his wife Alice (Alexandra Nikolaeva), who sacrificed her acting career to please her husband, are serving voluntary confinement on a sparsely populated sea island. In the abode that both have long since become sick of (a gloomy and cramped watchtower), a certain amount of comfort is strangely preserved: light cushions on the chairs and sofa; summer country swing hanging right in the room. It would seem that people are doomed to a smooth and eventless, purely philistine existence. Not so! There is no end to the raging of serious passions: love and hatred, affection and disgust, patience and betrayal are fighting according to all the rules of military strategy. Calms and truces are swept away by heavy fire of mutual accusations and threats. Poorly hidden contempt shines through in any phrase thrown over the shoulder.
The senselessness and lack of motivation of the hostility is obvious to both. The understanding of this is brilliantly played out by Yanushkevich, whose hero, with manic stubbornness, tediousness and conviction of permissiveness, pesters his wife every second, a moment later, however, expecting help and support from her. The revelry of base passions reaches its apogee with the appearance in the house of a third (his own and someone else’s at the same time) - Alice’s relative named Kurt (Vladimir Yavorsky), whose appearance on the threshold accelerated the process of moral decay of two fiercely fighting people who form an indissoluble self-destructive whole.
Alice's face twists and turns to stone, the lenses of Edgar's glasses flash menacingly, poisonous laughter gives way to ominous whispers and repulsive tears, sometimes sincere, sometimes hypocritical. In the finale, the heroes unite to declare: “Cross it out and move on!..” - to continue living the life in which they are free to change little.
The performance of theater critic V. Gulchenko is distinguished by intelligibility and humaneness of intonation, which is not subject to the hysteria of the author's plot. The acting work of Mikhail Yanushkevich is worth seeing even if Strindberg and his philosophy are infinitely alien to you.
Johan August Strindberg (Swedish: Johan August Strindberg, 1849-1912) - Swedish prose writer, playwright and painter, founder of modern Swedish literature and modern theater. August Strindberg was born on January 22, 1849 in Stockholm. His father was a merchant from an aristocratic family, his mother was a servant. In 1867-1872 he studied at Uppsala University. In 1872 he wrote his first drama, Mester Uluf.
The writer was married three times. In politics he adhered to socialist, even anarchist views, which was reflected in his literary works. At the beginning of the 20th century, he was one of the masters of thought in Western civilization. The writer’s commitment to socialism made him acceptable to the authorities in the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp.
Strindberg died on May 14, 1912 in his native Stockholm. -03/27/1011. ATTENTION! The torrent file will be re-uploaded. Bitrate issues have been fixed, superficial cleaning (which, I must say, didn’t help much - the quality remains, hmm... specific, to put it mildly), cut into fragments, tags added, playing time displayed correctly. Incompatible with the previous distribution.

“Hell is other people,” Jean-Paul Sartre once said. “Hell is ourselves,” one should have proclaimed after reading Strindberg’s play “Dance of Death,” which he created in 1901. The mechanism of the birth of hatred, its ruthless cyclical nature, the ability to irrevocably draw the victim into its cycle are explored by the playwright using the example of a married couple who have approached a certain milestone in their life together - the date of the silver wedding. Artillery captain Edgar (Stanislavsky Theater artist Mikhail Yanushkevich), an expert in ballistics and the author of an unsold textbook on this science, and his wife Alice (Alexandra Nikolaeva), who sacrificed her acting career to please her husband, are serving voluntary confinement on a sparsely populated sea island. In the abode that both have long since become sick of (a gloomy and cramped watchtower), a certain amount of comfort is strangely preserved: light cushions on the chairs and sofa; summer country swing hanging right in the room. It would seem that people are doomed to a smooth and eventless, purely philistine existence. Not so! There is no end to the raging of serious passions: love and hatred, affection and disgust, patience and betrayal are fighting according to all the rules of military strategy. Calms and truces are swept away by heavy fire of mutual accusations and threats. Poorly hidden contempt shines through in any phrase thrown over the shoulder. The senselessness and lack of motivation of the hostility is obvious to both. The understanding of this is brilliantly played out by Yanushkevich, whose hero, with manic stubbornness, tediousness and conviction of permissiveness, pesters his wife every second, a moment later, however, expecting help and support from her. The revelry of base passions reaches its apogee with the appearance in the house of a third (his own and someone else’s at the same time) - Alice’s relative named Kurt (Vladimir Yavorsky), whose appearance on the threshold accelerated the process of moral decay of two fiercely fighting people who form an indissoluble self-destructive whole. Alice's face twists and turns to stone, the lenses of Edgar's glasses flash menacingly, poisonous laughter gives way to ominous whispers and repulsive tears, sometimes sincere, sometimes hypocritical. In the finale, the heroes unite to declare: “Cross it out and move on!..” - to continue living the life in which they are free to change little. The performance of theater critic V. Gulchenko is distinguished by intelligibility and humaneness of intonation, which is not subject to the hysteria of the author's plot. The acting work of Mikhail Yanushkevich is worth seeing even if Strindberg and his philosophy are infinitely alien to you. Johan August Strindberg (Swedish: Johan August Strindberg, 1849-1912) - Swedish prose writer, playwright and painter, founder of modern Swedish literature and modern theater. August Strindberg was born on January 22, 1849 in Stockholm. His father was a merchant from an aristocratic family, his mother was a servant. In 1867-1872 he studied at Uppsala University. In 1872 he wrote his first drama, Mester Uluf. The writer was married three times. In politics he adhered to socialist, even anarchist views, which was reflected in his literary works. At the beginning of the 20th century, he was one of the masters of thought in Western civilization. The writer’s commitment to socialism made him acceptable to the authorities in the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp. Strindberg died on May 14, 1912 in his native Stockholm.