A Dream Play by August Strindberg

A Dream Play by August Strindberg

Caryl Churchill's spare and resonant version of Strindberg's enigmatic masterpiece.

Written in 1901, a mysterious amalgam of Freud, Alice in Wonderland and Strindberg's own private symbolism, A Dream Play follows the logic of a dream:

A young woman comes from another world to see if life is really as difficult as people make it out to be. Characters merge into each other, locations change in an instant and a locked door becomes an obsessive recurrent image. As Strindberg wrote in his preface, he wanted 'to imitate the disjointed yet seemingly logical shape of a dream. Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist.'

This version of A Dream Play, from a literal translation by Charlotte Barslund, is by leading playwright Caryl Churchill. It was first performed in the Cottesloe auditorium of the National Theatre, London, in February 2005, in a production directed by Katie Mitchell, with additional material by Katie Mitchell and the company.

Also included is an introduction by Caryl Churchill.

'Elegant yet funereal and, like dreams, paradoxically serene and fraught'

* Independent on Sunday *

'100 minutes of disconcerting theatrical brilliance.. spellbinding'

* Daily Telegraph *

August Strindberg (1849-1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. His plays include The Father (1887), Miss Julie (1888), To Damascus (1898), The Dance of Death (1900), A Dream Play (1902) and The Ghost Sonata (1908). Caryl Churchill is a leading playwright who has written widely for the stage, television and radio. Her stage plays include: Owners (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1972); Objections to Sex and Violence (Royal Court, 1975); Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Joint Stock, 1976); Vinegar Tom (Monstrous Regiment, 1976); Traps (Royal Court, 1977); Cloud Nine (Joint Stock, 1979); Three More Sleepless Nights (Soho Poly and Royal Court, 1980); Top Girls (Royal Court, 1982); Fen (Joint Stock, 1983); Softcops (RSC, 1984); A Mouthful of Birds with David Lan (Joint Stock, 1986); Serious Money (Royal Court and Wyndham's, London, then Public Theater, New York, 1987); Icecream (Royal Court, 1989); Mad Forest (Central School of Speech and Drama, then Royal Court, 1990); Lives of the Great Poisoners with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink (Second Stride, 1991); The Skriker (Royal National Theatre, 1994); Thyestes translated from Seneca (Royal Court, 1994); Hotel with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink (Second Stride, 1997); This is a Chair (Royal Court, 1997); Blue Heart (Joint Stock, 1997); Far Away (Royal Court, 2000, and Albery, London, 2001, then New York Theatre Workshop, 2002); A Number (Royal Court, 2002, then New York Theatre Workshop, 2004); A Dream Play after Strindberg (Royal National Theatre, 2005); Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (Royal Court, 2006, then Public Theater, New York, 2008); Bliss, translated from Olivier Choinière (Royal Court, 2008); Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (Royal Court, 2009); Love and Information (Royal Court, 2012); Ding Dong the Wicked (Royal Court, 2012); Here We Go (National Theatre, 2015); Escaped Alone (Royal Court, 2016), Pigs and Dogs (Royal Court, 2016), Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. (Royal Court, 2019), What If If Only (Royal Court, 2021), Triumph (Almeida Theatre, London, & Public Theater, New York, 2026) and Three and a Bit (Almeida Theatre, 2027).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781854598516
ISBN 10	1854598511
Title	A Dream Play
Author	August Strindberg
Series	Nhb Classic Plays
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Nick Hern Books
Year published	2005-01-13
Number of pages	64
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.