Word: strindbergian
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...turned this experience into what amounts to his own harsh Strindbergian Ghost Sonata remains a mystery. One can easily imagine someone less guilt ridden than Bergman regarding the incident more as a youthful folly than as a life-shaping event. The facts of the matter are mundane enough, as he says in his book. In 1949, Bergman and a journalist named Gun Hagberg, both unhappily married, entered into a passionate affair, beginning with a long tryst in Paris, and continuing after their return to Sweden, where she discovered she was pregnant with his child. A bitter wrangle with her husband...
Also of special note is the lighting, which effectively highlights the dramatic tension of this Strindbergian nightmare. Prascak takes into account not only the lighting's immediate effects on each scene but the resulting shadow play as well. Without such creative lighting, the dream-like quality of the play could have failed--20-second blackout sequences are no fun when you expect a seamless transition from one scene to the next...
...lapses of subtlety in the direction find some counterparts in the acting, which American audiences may find a bit intense. This is particularly true of the brooding presence of Miss Julie's mother, a Strindbergian woman who drives her husband to ruin and warps here daughter's mind. Ulf Palme is convincing, however, as Miss Julie's seducer, and Anita Bjork's Miss Julie is superb, alternately imperious and pitiful as the events of the Midsummer Eve drive her to suicide. Her beauty and performance alone are well worth a trip to the Brattle. R.E. OLDENBURG
...Howard, Mr. Nathan disposes of them as a "dramatic barbershop quartette." In Vincent Lawrence, on the other hand, he finds the most gifted of present day comic-dramatists. From the rest," . . . we get the current liberal smear of pseudo-profound poppycock dealing with burnt-cork Spinozas, flapper Margaret Sangers, Strindbergian street-walkers and doughboy Bismarcks...
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