A dream game
Ein Traumspiel ( Swedish Ett drömspel ) is a play by August Strindberg , published in 1902. The first performance of the play was on April 17, 1907 in Svenska Teatern in Stockholm. The German premiere took place on March 17, 1916 in the theater in Königgrätzer Strasse in Berlin.
classification
A dream play with the chamber play The Ghost Sonata and the Damascus trilogy are among the main works of his later creative period. The tragedy of human life and search is portrayed in suggestive, sometimes imperceptibly merging episodes of a station drama.
action
The protagonist is the daughter of the Indian god Indra , Agnes, who comes down to earth out of compassion for people. In ever new transformations and dreamlike sequences without any actual dramatic action, she explores the possibilities and limitations of human existence. Agnes's pity: “It's a shame about the people” (“Det är synd omomanniskorna”) becomes the main motif of the piece. As an example, she encounters different life plans: that of the officer, the pedantic lawyer, the poet. The failure and suffering of the characters take on a metaphysical dimension, as the meaning of life can only emerge from an unrecognizable, otherworldly context that at the same time interweaves the current events in a dreamlike and mysterious way. Agnes' path ends at a door in the theater corridor, behind which she suspects the "solution to the world puzzle". It turns out that there is "nothing" behind the door.
The riddles of the world remain unanswered; What remains is “a wall of questioning, grieving, desperate human faces”. Agnes vows to carry the poet's lament, reminiscent of Job , against God the Creator on her return to the throne of her father.
interpretation
In the suggestive linguistic power and poetry of the work, a sense of life is suggested in “sympathy” and the mutual identification and reflection of the characters - despite all the complaints and all the suffering. Strindberg wrote the work a year after Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams appeared .
Emergence
On May 6, 1901, August Strindberg married the young actress Harriet Bosse , but she left him and wrote to August that she had gone forever. August became desperate and fell into a crisis. His diary notes from this period mention a draft of the piece. Harriet returned on October 5th. The text was completed by early 1902 at the latest.
expenditure
- Stockholm 1902
- Stockholm 1916
Translations:
- Strindberg, August: A dream game, Reclam Stuttgart 1957, translation: Willi Reich
- Spectaculum 21, Five modern theater pieces, Frankfurt am Main 1974
Film adaptations:
- Ein Traumspiel, FRG 1959 (TV; director: Wilhelm Semmelroth , with, among others, Inge Langen , Helmut Peine , Peter Schütte , Peter Arens , Tilla Durieux and Kurt Lieck )
- Ein Traumspiel, Sweden 1963 (TV; Director: Ingmar Bergman )
- A dream game, Sweden 1980 (TV; director: Johan Bergenstråhle)
- Drömspel, Sweden / Norway 1994 (Director: Unni Straume)
Settings
- Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek , dream play, incidental music for August Strindberg's drama (1915)
- Julius Weismann , A Dream Play (opera; premiered: Duisburg 1925)
- Aribert Reimann , A Dream Play (opera; premiered: Kiel 1965)
- Malcolm Williamson , The Growing Castle (opera; premiered at Dynevorcastle, Wales 1968)
- Ingvar Lidholm , Ett drömspel (opera; world premiere: Stockholm 1992)
literature
- Kindler's New Literature Lexicon, Munich 1988 (there further detailed literature references)
- Harenberg Lexicon of World Literature, Dortmund 1989
Web links
- Performance at the studio stage of the University of Paderborn in a production by Joachim Köhring (10 January - 6 February 2008)