August Strindberg

Frank McGuinness

Frank McGuinness presents scintillating new versions of two of August Strindberg's plays -- one a major work, the other less well known. Miss Julie is Strindberg's examination of power, sex, and class, set on a midsummer's eve in a nobleman's house and focusing on the shifting relationship between Miss Julie, the daughter of the house, and Jean, her father's manservant. The Stronger is a short play that explores the complex range of emotions felt by Madame X when she encounters Mademoiselle Y, her husband's former mistress, at a fashionable cafe. Calling Mademoiselle Y worn out and evil, Madame X says that the triumph of her marriage proves she is the stronger of the two -- even though these words ring hollow, as she attempts to deceive only herself.

Two Plays

Miss Julie and The Stronger

The mortal conflict of the sexes, traced here by Strindberg in the clash between an aristocratic young woman and her valet. Ms. Stockenstrom's new translation retains the rhythm and emotional feel of the original while making the prose more playable for today's audiences.

Miss Julie

Tess Letasz

This play takes place during the Midsummer’s festival and shows a conflict between the daughter of a count, Julie, and her father’s valet, Jean. The two of them hook up on the night of the festival and chaos ensues when it is learned that Julie entices Jean because she claims to hate men and wishes to control him but also when Jean finds out Julie has no money of her own and very quickly dumps her like a used tissue. So, Julie very quickly falls apart after finding out she lowered herself and dishonored her reputation and family pretty much for nothing. After, both characters claim they did what they did as a result of their upbringing and stations in life. I found their messiness to be entertaining like a soap opera but their reasoning behind hurting and using each other is ridiculous. You can come from a high position or low position and still choose to be a good person. The two main characters are adults that need babysitters and to be kept away from each other. Also the way it ended could be seen as problematic for some people. I found the ending excessive.

David French

"As all the great playwrights since the Greeks have known, class and gender roles remain the two fundamental determinants of the social fabric of any culture - even one, like our own, in which the boundaries of those identities have become fluid, situational and transitory." "David French's adaptation of August Strindberg's disturbing drama of the affair between the daughter of a count and the count's man-servant has an eerie, contemporary feel about it. French has sharpened the dynamics of the original conflict of desire, anger, jealousy, dominance, submission and deceit while remaining true to the historical background. his riveting version of Miss Julie brings to the foreground the conflicts of identity and faith that lead to the rending of social norms and conventions."--BOOK JACKET.

Emma Snäll

Marie Breton

Johan August Strindberg

The Father; A Dream Play; Miss Julie; The Ghost Sonata; The Dance of Death `Ibsen can sit serenely in his Doll's House,' Sean O'Casey remarked, `while Strindberg is battling with his heaven and his hell.' Strindberg was one of the most extreme, and ultimately the most influential theatrical innovators of the late nineteenth century. The five plays translated here are those on which Strindberg's international reputation as a dramatist principally rests and this edition embraces his crucial transition from Naturalism to Modernism, from his two finest achievements as a psychological realist, The Father and Miss Julie, to the three plays in which he redefined the possibilities of European drama following his return to the theatre in 1898. Michael Robinson's highly performable translations are based on the authoritative texts of the new edition of Strindberg's collected works in Sweden and include the Preface to Miss Julie, Strindberg's manifesto of theatrical naturalism. Introduction Textual Note Bibliography Chronology Explanatory Notes

Miss Julie and The Stronger Two Plays

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