The Chamber Plays

Fülszöveg

A Dili ton

Paperback
THE CHAMBER PLAYS
BY AUGUST STRINDBERG
translated by Evert Sprinrhorn and Seabury Quinn, Jr.
Introduction by Evert Sprinchorn
This book is of unique importance since it brings together in one volume for the first time in English brilliant modern : translations of the short chamber plays that Strindberg wrote in 1907 especially for his Intimate Theatre in Stockholm. Each play is meant to take about ninety minutes in performance.
Strindberg always referred to the chamber plays as his "last sonatas," and it is significant that when writing them he broke completely with the rules of standard drama and evolved a style where theme and mood alone determine the form the plays will take. They are written like a piece of music and require from an audience close attention to theme and its development rather than to plot and character.
The basic theme of all four plays is death—death that is not only a final release from the anguish, darkness, and dirt of life,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

A Dili ton

Paperback
THE CHAMBER PLAYS
BY AUGUST STRINDBERG
translated by Evert Sprinrhorn and Seabury Quinn, Jr.
Introduction by Evert Sprinchorn
This book is of unique importance since it brings together in one volume for the first time in English brilliant modern : translations of the short chamber plays that Strindberg wrote in 1907 especially for his Intimate Theatre in Stockholm. Each play is meant to take about ninety minutes in performance.
Strindberg always referred to the chamber plays as his "last sonatas," and it is significant that when writing them he broke completely with the rules of standard drama and evolved a style where theme and mood alone determine the form the plays will take. They are written like a piece of music and require from an audience close attention to theme and its development rather than to plot and character.
The basic theme of all four plays is death—death that is not only a final release from the anguish, darkness, and dirt of life, but also a final settling of accounts. Various moods express this unifying theme: Storm Weather is lyrical and sentimental like the waltz heard in the background; L The Burned House is mordantly comic and disdainful; The Ghost Sonata (the most famous of the plays) and The M Pelican fuse together a monumental scorn for the world and a genuine sympathy for the deluded and put-upon ^ creatures who inhabit it. Vissza