A Dream Play
Ett Drömspel
(1901/1907)
Dramaturgy Presentation
August Strindberg (1849 – 1912)
 Experimentation
of
Form
 Context: mental
instability & Harriet
Bosse
 Spirituality and Dreams
Intent?
Forms
 Naturalism
(Miss Julie, The Father)
 Chamber plays (The Ghost Sonata)
 Dream plays (Damascus, A Dream Play)
 History plays (Erik XIV)
In the late 1890s, Strindberg rejects the
“well-made” play. . . Why?
Mental State
 Mental
instability
 Hospitalized from 1894 through 1896
 Paranoia
 People



have called him
Psychotic
Narcissistic
Schizophrenic
Harriet Bosse
(1901 – 1903)
 She
visited him in his
dreams; he said she
“possessed” him
 Bosse leaves for “40”
days
 “I am tortured by the
thought of all the
suffering I have caused
you.”
 “the child of my
greatest pain”
At the same time:
 Interests
in the occult, mysticism,
science, hypnosis, and alchemy
 Interest in Eastern philosophy
 Interest in music and musical structure
 “Disciple” of Emmanuel Swedenborg
Strindberg on A Dream Play
 “Am
reading about the teachings of Indian
religion. The whole world is but a semblance . . .
Love is sin; therefore the pangs of love are the
greatest hell”
 “The world has thus come into existence only
through a sin – if indeed it exists at all – for it is
really only a mirage (consequently my Dream
Play is an image of life), a phantom, and it is the
task of asceticism to destroy it.”
Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)
 Christian
mystic and
scientist
 at the age of 56,
he goes through a
psycho-religious
crisis
 Some thought him a
madman, while
others thought he
was a powerful
spiritual seer
Swedenborg 101
 Love
is the source of life & essence of God
 Suffering and Salvation
 Spirit & Material Worlds Coexist
 Signs & Spirituality
 One can expand awareness of one’s
spiritual reality through dream exploration
Strindberg on Spirituality
 Similarity
between the dream and the
“disorderly life” which is woven by “The
World Weaver”
 “What has saved my soul from darkness is
my Religion. The hope of a better life to
come, and the firm conviction that we
live in a world of folly and delusion
(illusion), out of which we must struggle to
free ourselves.”
Strindberg on Suffering:
 Strindberg
later writes that since he was
born under the sign of the Ram, he
represents the Sacrifice chosen by God,
and that everything that happens to him
is designed by Divinity and is meant to
educate him.
 Devastation: “persecution is a gift from
God, a trial leading to salvation.”
On Seeing Signs?
“If I see my pillow taking on human
shapes, then those shapes are
there, and if someone says that
they are only generated by my
imagination, I’ll reply: ‘Only,’ you
say? – What my inner eye sees, is
more to me!”
A Dream Play
 Dreams
are more real than reality
 Dreams are a way to access the spiritual
plane
 The material world is “counterfeit”
 “Life is indescribably ugly”
 The dream represents the pain and
suffering of mortal life (“tormenting
dream”)
 Release through death/salvation
Intention?
 Mental
instability played a part
 Obsession with morbidity
 An apology to Bosse?
 Explore dreams and spirituality
 Share his thoughts on pain & suffering
 Theatrical experimentation
Wiki
http://adreamplaydramaturgy.
wikispaces.com/Welcome