Frederick J. Marker - Böcker

Despite the profound influence exerted by August Strindberg on the development of modernist theatre and drama, the myth persisted that his plays - particularly such later works as A Dream Play, To Damascus, and The Ghost Sonata - are somehow 'unperformable'. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as this book sets out to demonstrate by providing a detailed performance analysis of the major works created after the period of personal crisis which Strindberg called his Inferno. Ranging from the early productions of Max Reinhardt and Olof Molander to the reinterpretations of Robert Lepage, Robert Wilson and Ingmar Bergman in our own day, this study explores the crucial impact that this writer's allusive (and elusive) method of playwriting has had on the changing nature of the theatrical experience. Each chapter ends with a section devoted to innovative Strindberg performances on the contemporary stage.

The theatrical heritage from which both Ibsen and Strindberg sprang is rich in tradition and achievement. This study of the history and development of theatre in Scandinavia examines dominant styles and trends in various periods, from the earliest performances in the Middle Ages to the provocative productions and experiments of the present day. It also demonstrates that the manifest vitality of theatrical activity in the three Nordic countries has depended on a vigorous interaction with European theatre at large. By the second half of the nineteenth century, as Ibsen and Strindberg began their rise to international prominence, Scandinavian theatre came to occupy a more dominant position in the wider European framework. In our own day, more forcefully than ever before, major Scandinavian stage directors and designers have continued to influence the shape and outlook of contemporary theatre as a whole. This book provides a balanced and authoritative account of the theatrical history of all three Scandinavian countries. It is generously illustrated and comprehensively documented, with an extensive bibliography.

This book is a revised and expanded version of Ingmar Bergman: Four Decades in the Theatre, by the same authors, published more than ten years ago. The developments that have occurred in the interim, clustered around Bergman's triumphant return to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm after years of self-imposed exile, have profoundly altered the course of this extraordinary career. Still the only book of its kind in English, this amply illustrated study uses detailed and comprehensive analyses of a range of Bergman's productions to chart the full scope and depth of his achievement in the theatre, from the early Macbeth in 1944 to his new, widely acclaimed performance of Ibsen's Peer Gynt in 1991.

A play is fundamentally a text for performance, capable of achieving complete expression only in the living encounter between actor and spectator, the Markers argue in their new study of Henrik Ibsen in the theatre. The challenge of his plays has stimulated a remarkable range of creative responses on the part of actors, directors, and stage designers. All agree that a deeper meaning underlies the 'reality' Ibsen represents, yet the precise manner of its expression is the lively variant that gives his greatest plays their abiding fascination in performance. Ibsen's Lively Art explores key stage productions and clusters of productions in detail, in an effort to shed new light on the central problems of interpretation governing each of six major Ibsen plays, from a romantic work like Peer Gynt to a late 'symbolic' one like John Gabriel Borkman. Guided by primary sources and often supported by their own firsthand observation, the authors push beyond the more familiar confines of English Ibsen into the less commonly traversed territory of German, Russian, French, and, in particular, Scandinavian theatre culture.