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Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger

A >> August Strindberg >> Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger



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PLAYS:
The Father
Countess Julie
The Outlaw
The Stronger

by AUGUST STRINDBERG

Translated by Edith and Warner Oland





To M. C. S. and J. H. S.,
Under whose rooftree these translations were made.



CONTENTS.

THE FATHER
A Tragedy in III Acts.

COUNTESS JULIE
A Tragedy in I Act.

THE OUTLAW
A play in I Act.

THE STRONGER
An Episode in I Scene.



PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

Since the accompanying biographical note, which aims solely at
outlining the principal events of Strindberg's life up to 1912, was
put in type, the news of his death from cancer, at Stockholm on
May 14, 1912, has been reported.

Of the plays included in the present volume, "The Father" and
"Countess Julie" are representative of Strindberg's high water mark
in dramatic technique and have successfully maintained their claim
to a permanent place, not only in dramatic literature, but, as
acting plays.

"The Stronger," than which no better example of Strindberg's
uncanny power for analysis of the female mind exists, while
essentially a chamber play, is from time to time presented at the
theatre, and affords a splendid test of the dramatic ability of the
actors, only one of whom speaks. The author has boldly thrown on
the other the burden of maintaining her share in the development of
the action by pantomime, facial expression, and an occasional
laugh.

"The Outlaw," although inferior in construction to the others, is
still played with success and is full of dignity and atmosphere.
The important part it played in promoting the fortunes of the
author lends to it an added interest which fully justifies its
inclusion in this volume.



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

"I tell you, you must have chaos in you, if you would give birth to
a dancing star." --Nietzsche.

In Stockholm, living almost as a recluse, August Strindberg is
dreaming life away. The dancing stars, sprung from the chaos of his
being, shine with an ever-increasing refulgence from the high-arched
dome of dramatic literature, but he no longer adds to their number.
The constellation of the Lion of the North is complete.

At sixty-three, worn by the emotional intensity of a life, into
which has been crowded the stress and storm of a universe, he sits
at his desk, every day transcribing to his diary a record of those
mystical forces which he says regulate his life.

Before him lies a crucifix, Hardly as a symbol of sectarian faith,
for Strindberg is a Swedenborgian, but a fitting accompaniment,
nevertheless, to a state of mind which he expresses in saying "One
gets more and more humble the longer one lives, and in the shadow
of death many things look different." A softer light beams from
those blue eyes, which, under that tossing crown of tawny hair
flung high from a speaking forehead, in times past flashed defiance
at every opposition. For him the fierce, unyielding, never-ceasing,
ever-pressing strife of mind and unrest of life is passing, an eddy
in the tide has borne him into quieter waters, and if the hum of
the world reaches his solitude, it no longer rouses him to headlong
action.

Secure in his position as the foremost man of letters Sweden has
produced in modern times, the last representative of that
distinguished group of Scandinavian writers which included Ibsen,
Bjornson and Brandes, with a Continental reputation surpassing that
of any one of them, Strindberg well may be entitled to dream of the
past.

One day when in the evolution of the drama Strindberg's technique
shall have served its purpose and like Ibsen's, be forced to give
way before the advance of younger artists, when his most radical
views shall have become the commonplaces of pseudo-culture, the
scientific psychologist will take the man in hand and, from the
minute record of his life, emotions, thoughts, fancies,
speculations and nightmares, which he has embodied in
autobiographical novels and that most remarkable perhaps of all his
creations, abysmal in its pessimism, "The Inferno," will be drawn a
true conception of the man.

That the individual will prove quite as interesting a study as his
literary work, even the briefest outline of Strindberg's life will
suggest.

The lack of harmony in his soul that has permeated his life and
work with theses and antitheses Strindberg tries to explain through
heredity, a by no means satisfying or complete solution for the
motivation of his frequently unusual conduct and exceptional
temperamental qualities, which the abnormal psychologist is in the
habit of associating with that not inconsiderable group of cases in
which the emotional and temperamental characteristics of the
opposite sex are dominant in the individual. His ancestry has been
traced back to the sixteenth century, when his father's family was
of the titled aristocracy, later, generation after generation,
becoming churchmen, although Strindberg's father, Carl Oscar,
undertook a commercial career. His mother, Ulrica Eleanora Norling,
was the daughter of a poor tailor, whom Strindberg's father first
met as a waitress in a hotel, and, falling in love with her,
married, after she had borne him three children.

August, christened Johann August, the fourth child, was born at
Stockholm, January 22, 1849, soon after his father had become a
bankrupt. There was little light or cheer in the boy's home; the
misfortune that overtook the family at the time of August's birth
always hung over them like a dark cloud; the mother became nervous
and worn from the twelve child-births she survived, the father
serious and reserved. The children were brought up strictly and as
August was no favorite, loneliness and hostility filled even his
earliest years.

His first school days were spent among boys of the better class,
who turned up their noses at his leather breeches and heavy boots.
He was taken away from that school and sent where there was a lower
class of boys, whose leader he soon became, but in his studies he
was far from precocious, though not dull.

As he grew up the family fortunes bettered, and he attended a
private school patronized by cultivated and wealthy people. Mixing
so with both classes meant much in the development of the youth,
and he began to realize that he belonged to both and neither, felt
homeless, torn in his sympathies and antipathies, plebian and
aristocratic at the same time. In his thirteenth year, his mother
died, a loss for which his father was apparently soon consoled, as
in less than a year he married his housekeeper. This was another
blow to the boy, for he disliked the woman, and there was soon war
between them.

At fifteen he fell in love with it woman of thirty of very
religious character, and its this was a period of fervent belief
with the youth himself, she became an influence in his life for
Home time, but one day a young comrade asked him to luncheon at a
cafe, and for the first time Strindberg partook of schnaps and ale
with a hearty meal. This little luncheon was the event which broke
up the melancholy introspection of his youth and stirred him to
activity.

He went to Upsala University for one term and then left, partly on
account of the lack of funds for books, and partly because the
slow, pedantic methods of learning were distasteful to his
restless, active nature. He then became a school teacher; next
interested in medical science, which he studied energetically,
until the realities of suffering drove him from it. About this
time, the same time, by the way, that Ibsen's "The League of Youth"
was being hissed down at Christiana, the creative artist in
Strindberg began to stir, and after six months more of turmoil of
soul, he turned to the stage as a possible solution, making his
debut at the Dramatiska Theatre in 1869 in Bjornson's "Mary
Stuart," in the part of a lord with one line to speak. After two
months of no advancement he found courage to ask to be heard in one
of the classical roles he had been studying.

The director, tired from a long rehearsal, reluctantly consented to
listen to him, likewise, the bored company of actors. Strindberg
went on "to do or die," and was soon shouting like a revivalist,
and made such it bad impression that he was advised to go to the
dramatic school to study. He went home disgusted and heartsick,
and, determined to take his life, swallowed an opium pill which he
had long been keeping for that purpose.

However, it was not sufficiently powerful, and, a friend coming to
see him, he was persuaded to go out, and together they drowned his
chagrin in an evening at it café.

The day after was a memorable one, for it was Strindberg's birthday
as a dramatist. He was lying on a sofa at home, his body still hot
from the shame of his defeat--and wine, trying to figure out how he
could persuade his stepmother to effect a reconciliation between
him and his father. He saw the scenes played as clearly as though
on a stage, and with his brain working at high pressure, in two
hours had the scheme for two acts of a comedy worked out. In four
days it was finished--Strindberg's first play! It was refused
production, but he was complimented, and felt that his honor was
saved.

The fever of writing took possession of him and within two months
he had finished two comedies, and a tragedy in verse called
"Hermione," which was later produced. Giving so much promise as a
dramatist he was persuaded to leave the stage and, unwilling of
spirit, returned to Upsala in the spring of 1870, as he was advised
that he would never he recognized as a writer unless he had secured
is university degree. The means with which to continue his studies
were derived from the two hundred crowns left him by his mother,
which he now forced his father to allow him to use. Despite this,
however, his fortunes often ran to the lowest ebb.

One day Strindberg announced that he had a one act play called "In
Rome" to read to the "Runa" (Song) Club, a group of six students
whom he had gotten together, and which was devoted exclusively to
the reading of the poetry of its members. The play, based upon an
incident in the life of Thorvaldsen, was received enthusiastically
by the "Runa," and the rest of the night was spent in high talk of
Strindberg's future over a champagne supper in his honor given by
one of the well-to-do members. These days of homage and
appreciation from this student group Strindberg cherishes as the
happiest time in his life, but notwithstanding their worshipful
attitude, he himself was full of doubts and misgivings about his
abilities.

One of these friends sent the manuscript of "In Rome" to the
Dramatiska Theatre at Stockholm, where it was accepted and produced
anonymously in August of the same year, 1870. Strindberg was
present at the premiere and although it was well received, to him
it was all a fine occasion--except the play! He was ashamed of his
self-confession in it and fled before the final curtain. He soon
finished another play, "The Outlaw," which is included in the
present volume. In this drama, which retains a high place among his
plays, Strindberg shows for the first time his lion's claw and in
it began to speak with his own voice. It was accepted by the Court
Theatre at Stockholm for production during the next autumn, that of
1871.

At the close of the summer, after a violent quarrel with his
father, he returned to the University in the hope of finding help
from his comrades. Arrived at Upsala, with just one crown, he found
that many of his old and more prosperous friends were no longer
there. Times were harder than ever.

But at last a gleam of hope came with the news that "The Outlaw"
was actually to be produced. And his wildest dreams were then
realized, for, despite the unappreciative attitude of the critics
toward this splendid Viking piece, the King, Carl XV, after seeing
the play, commanded Strindberg to appear before him. Strindberg
regarded the summons as the perpetration of a practical joke, and
only obeyed it after making sure by telegraph that it was not a
hoax.

Strindberg tells of the kindly old king standing with a big pipe in
his hand as the young author strode between chamberlains and other
court dignitaries into the royal presence.

The king, a grandson of Napoleon's marshal Bernadotte, and as a
Frenchman on the throne of Sweden, diplomatic enough to desire at
least the appearance of being more Swedish than the Swedes, spoke
of the pleasure the ancient Viking spirit of "The Outlaw" had given
him, and, after talking genially for some time, said, "You are the
son of Strindberg, the steamship agent, I believe and so, of
course, are not in need."

"Quite the reverse," Strindberg replied, explaining that his father
no longer gave him the meager help in his university course, which
he had formerly done.

"How much can you get along on per annum until you graduate?" asked
the king.

Strindberg was unable to say in a moment. "I'm rather short of coin
myself," said the king quite frankly, "but do you think you could
manage on eight hundred riksdaler a year?" Strindberg was
overwhelmed by such munificence, and the interview was concluded by
his introduction to the court treasurer, from whom he received his
first quarter's allowance of two hundred crowns.

Full of thankfulness for this unexpected turn of fate, the young
dramatist returned to Upsala. For once he appeared satisfied with
his lot, and took up his studies with more earnestness than ever.
The year 1871 closed brilliantly for the young writer, for in
addition to the kingly favor be received honorable mention from the
Swedish Academy for his Greek drama "Hermione." The following year,
1872, life at the university again began to pall on his restless
mind, and he took to painting.

Then followed a serious disagreement with one of the professors, so
that when he received word from the court treasurer that it was
uncertain whether his stipend could be continued on account of the
death of the king, he decided to leave the University for good. At
a farewell banquet in his honor, he expressed his appreciation of
all he had received from his student friends, saying, "A
personality does not develop from itself, but out of each soul it
comes in contact with, it sucks a drop, just as the bee gathers its
honey from a million flowers giving it forth eventually as its
own."

Strindberg went to Stockholm to become a literateur and, if
possible, a creative artist. He gleaned a living from newspaper
work for a few months, but in the summer went to a fishing village
on a remote island in Bothnia Bay where, in his twenty-third year,
he wrote his great historical drama, "Master Olof." Breaking away
from traditions and making flesh and blood creations instead of
historical skeletons in this play, it was refused by all the
managers of the theatres, who assured Strindberg that the public
would not tolerate any such unfamiliar methods. Strindberg
protested, and defended and tried to elucidate his realistic
handling of the almost sacred historical personages, but in vain,
for "Master Olof" was not produced until seven years later, when it
was put on at the Swedish Theatre at Stockholm in 1880, the year
Ibsen was writing "Ghosts" at Sorrento.

In 1874, after a year or two of unsuccessful effort to make a
living in various employments, he became assistant at the Court
library, which was indeed a haven of refuge, a position providing
both leisure for study and an assured income. Finding in the
library some Chinese parchments which had not been catalogued; he
plunged into the study of that language. A treatise which he wrote
on the subject won him medals from various learned societies at
home, as well as recognition from the French Institute. This
success induced the many other treatises that followed, for which
he received a variety of decorations, and along with the honors
nearly brought upon himself "a salubrious idiocy," to use his own
phrase.

Then something happened that stirred the old higher voice in him,--
he fell in love. He had been invited through a woman friend to go
to the home of Baron Wrangel, where his name as an author was
esteemed. He refused the invitation, but the next day, walking in
the city streets with this same woman friend, they encountered the
Baroness Wrangel to whom Strindberg was introduced. The Baroness
asked him once more to come. He promised to do so, and they
separated. As Strindberg's friend went into a shop, he turned to
look down the street; noting the beautiful lines of the
disappearing figure of the Baroness, noting, too, a stray lock of
her golden hair, that had escaped from her veil, and played against
the white ruching at her throat. He gazed after her long, in fact,
until she disappeared in the crowded street. From that moment he
was not a free man. The friendship which followed resulted in the
divorce of the Baroness from her husband and her marriage to
Strindberg, December 30, 1877, when he was twenty-eight years old.
At last Strindberg had someone to love, to take care of, to
worship. This experience of happiness, so strange to him, revived
the creative impulse.

The following year, 1878, "Master Olof" was finally accepted for
publication, and won immediate praise and appreciation. This, to
his mind, belated success, roused in Strindberg a smoldering
resentment, which lack of confidence and authority of position had
heretofore caused him to repress. He broke out with a burning
satire, in novel form, called "The Red Room," the motto of which he
made Voltaire's words "Rien n'est si désagréable que s'etre pendu
obscurément."

Hardly more than mention can be made of the important work of this
dramatist, poet, novelist, historian, scientist and philosopher. In
1888 he left Sweden, as the atmosphere there had become too
disagreeable for him through controversy after controversy in which
lie became involved. He joined a group of painters and writers of
all nationalities in it little village in France. There he wrote
"La France," setting forth the relations between France and Sweden
in olden times. This was published in Paris and the French
government, tendered him the decoration of the legion of honor
which, however, he refused very politely, explaining that he never
wore a frock coat! The episode ends amusingly with the publisher, a
Swede, receiving the decoration instead. In 1884 the first volume
of his famous short stories, called "Marriages" appeared. It was
aimed at the cult that had sprung up from Ibsen's "A Doll's House,"
which was threatening the peace of all households. A few days after
the publication of "Marriages" the first edition was literally
swallowed up. As the book dealt frankly with the physical facts of
sex relations, it was confiscated by the Swedish government a month
after its publication, and Strindberg was obliged to go to
Stockholm to defend his cause in the courts, which he won, and in
another month "Marriages" was again on the market.

The next year, 1885, his "Real Utopias" was written in Switzerland,
an attack, in the form of four short stories, on over-civilization,
which won him much applause in Germany. He went to Italy as a
special correspondent for the "Daily News" of Stockholm.

In 1886 the much anticipated second volume of "Marriages" appeared.
These were the short stories, satisfying to the simplest as well as
to the most discriminating minds, that attracted Nietzsche's
attention to Strindberg. A correspondence sprung up between the two
men, referring to which in a letter to Peter Gast, Nietzsche said,
"Strindberg has written to me, and for the first time I sense an
answering note of universality." The mutual admiration and
intellectual sympathies of these two conspicuous creative geniuses
has led a number of critics, including Edmund Gosse, into the error
of attributing to Nietzsche a dominating influence over Strindberg.
It should be remembered, however, the "Countess Julie" and "The
Father," which are cited its the most obvious examples of that
supposed influence, were completed before Strindberg's acquaintance
with Nietzsche's philosophy, and that among others, the late John
Davidson, is also charged with having drawn largely from Nietzsche.
The fact is, that, during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, the most original thinkers of many countries were quite
independently, though less clearly, evolving the same philosophic
principals that the master mind of Nietzsche was radiating in the
almost blinding flashes of his genius.

Then came the period during which Strindberg attained the highest
peaks of his work, the years 1886-90, with his autobiography, "The
Servant Woman's Son," the tragedies, "The Father," and "Countess
Julie," the comedies, "Comrades," and "The Stronger," and the
tragi-comedies, "The Creditors" and "Simoon." Of these, "The
Father" and "Countess Julie" soon made Strindberg's name known and
honored throughout Europe, except in his home country.

In "The Father" perhaps his biggest vision is felt. It was
published in French soon after it appeared in Sweden, with an
introduction by Zola in which he says, "To be brief, you have
written a mighty and capitvating work. It is one of the few dramas
that have had the power to stir me to the depths."

Of his choice of theme in "Countess Julie," Strindberg says: "When
I took this motive from life, as it was related to me a few years
ago, it made a strong impression on me. I found it suitable for
tragedy, and it still makes a sorrowful impression on me to see an
individual to whom happiness has been allotted go under, much more,
to see a line become extinct." And in defence of his realism he has
said further in his preface to "Countess Julie": "The theatre has
for a long time seemed to me the Biblia pauperum in the fine arts,
a bible with pictures for those who can neither read nor write, and
the dramatist is the revivalist, and the revivalist dishes tap the
ideas of the day in popular form, so popular that the middle class,
of whom the bulk of theatre-goers is comprised, can without
burdening their brains understand what it is all about. The theatre
therefore has always been a grammar school for the young, the
half-educated, and women, who still possess the primitive power of
being able to delude themselves and of allowing themselves to be
deluded, that is to say, receive illusions and accept suggestions
from the dramatist. *** Some people have accused my tragedy, 'The
Father' of being too sad, as though one desired a merry tragedy.
People call authoritatively for the 'Joy of Life' and theatrical
managers call for farces, as though the Joy of Life lay in being
foolish, and in describing people who each and every one are
suffering from St. Vitus' dance or idiocy. I find the joy of life
in the powerful, terrible struggles of life; and the capability of
experiencing something, of learning something, is a pleasure to me.
And therefore I have chosen an unusual but instructive subject; in
other words, an exception, but a great exception, that will
strengthen the rules which offend the apostle of the commonplace.
What will further create antipathy in some, is the fact that my
plan of action is not simple, and that there is not one view alone
to be taken of it. An event in life--and that is rather a new
discovery--is usually occasioned by a series of more or less
deep-seated motifs, but the spectator generally chooses that one
which his power of judgment finds simplest to grasp, or that his
gift of judgment considers the most honorable. For example, someone
commits suicide: 'Bad business!' says the citizen; 'Unhappy love!'
says the woman; 'Sickness!' says the sick man; 'Disappointed
hopes?' the bankrupt. But it may be that none of these reasons is
the real one, and that the dead man hid the real one by pretending
another that would throw the most favorable light on his memory.
*** In the following drama ('Julie') I have not sought to do
anything new, because that cannot be done, but only to modernize
the form according to the requirements I have considered
present-day people require."

Following the mighty output, of those years, in 1891 Strindberg
went out: to the islands where he had lived years before, and led a
hermit's life. Many of his romantic plays were written there, and
much of his time was spent at painting.

In 1892 he was divorced from his wife.

After a few months Strindberg went to Berlin, where he was received
with all honors by literary Germany. Richard Dehmel, one of their
foremost minstrels, celebrated the event by a poem called "An
Immortal,--To Germany's Guest." In the shop windows his picture
hung alongside that of Bismarck, and at the theatres his plays were
being produced. About this time he heard of the commotion that
"Countess Julie" had created in Paris, where it had been produced
by Antoine. During these victorious times Strindberg met a young
Austrian writer, Frida Uhl, to whom he was married in April 1898.
Although the literary giant of the hour, he was nevertheless in
very straightened pecuniary circumstances, which led to his
allowing the publication of "A Fool's Confession," written in
French, and later, with out his permission or knowledge, issued in
German and Swedish, which entangled him in a lawsuit, as the
subject matter contained much of his marital miseries. Interest in
chemistry had long been stirring in Strindberg's mind; it now began
to deepen. About this time also he passed through that religious
crisis which swept artistic Europe, awakened nearly a century after
his death by that Swedenborgian poet and artist, William Blake. To
this period belongs "To Damascus," a play of deepest soul probing,
which was not finished however until 1904.

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