Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter | Page 3

inherited a small income from an aunt. And the former giant, who had been able to work for a household of twelve, crushed by the disgrace of bankruptcy, was forced to feel the humiliation of accepting support from his daughter, who went about with her twenty-nine women friends, receiving their comfort and condolence, weeping over her fate, and sometimes actually wishing the life out of her father."
The immediate result of all this observation and consequent analysis was the collection of short stories in two volumes called "Marriages," the first of which, published in 1884, gave rise to Strindberg's reputation of being a pessimist, and the second, two years later, to that of woman-hater, which became confirmed by the portrayals of women in his realistic dramas that soon followed, notably that of Laura in "The Father." That part of the woman-hater legend which one encounters most often is that Strindberg was revealing his own marital miseries in the sex conflicts of these dramas, particularly in "The Father," notwithstanding the fact that this play was written five years before his first marriage was dissolved, and little more than two years after his avowed hesitancy to undertake the dissection of womankind on account of the "happy erotic state" in which he was living.
And that his analytical labors and personal experiences, far from bringing about an acquired aversion for woman, never even let him be warned, is attested by the fact of his having founded three families. One is forced to suspect that instead of being a woman- hater, he was rather a disguised and indefatigable lover of woman, and that his wars on woman and his fruitless endeavors to get into harmony with the other half of the race were, fundamentally, a warring within himself of his own many-sided, rich nature. He said of himself that he had been sentenced by his nature to be the faultfinder, to see the other side of things. He hated the Don Juans among men as intensely as he did the lazy parasites among women--the rich and spoiled ones who declaimed loudest about woman's holy duties as wife and mother, but whose time was given up to being hysterical and thinking out foolish acts,--these women enraged him.
However, the psychology of woman represents but one phase of Strindberg. In a book called "The Author," styled by him "a self-evolutionary history," which was written during the germinating period of the realistic dramas, but was not given out for publication until 1909, there is a foreword which contains the following significant avowal from the Strindberg of the last years: "The author had not arrived in 1886; perhaps only came into being then. The book presented herewith is consequently only of secondary interest as constituting a fragment; and the reader should bear in mind that it was written over twenty years ago. The personality of the author is consequently as unfamiliar to me as to the reader-- and as unsympathetic. As he no longer exists, I can no longer assume any responsibility for him, and as I took part in his execution [1898] I believe I have the right to regard the past as expiated and stricken out of the Big Book." The "execution" in 1898 referred to was the spiritual crisis through which Strindberg passed when he emerged from the abysmal pessimism of "The Inferno;" then began the gradual return to spiritual faith which, in the end, caused him to declare himself a Swedenborgian.
The play, "Easter," included in the present collection, belongs to this period; it is a strange mingling of symbolism and realism, bearing the spiritual message of the resurrection. It was the most popular play produced at the Intimate Theatre in Stockholm, having been given there over two hundred times; and in Germany, also, it has been one of the plays most appreciated. That "Easter" is representative of the last phase, spiritually, of the great man is evidenced by the closing incident of his life. His favorite daughter, Kirtlin, was in the room as death approached. Strindberg called to her, and asked for the Bible; receiving the book, he opened it, and placing it across his breast, said, "This is the best book of all," and then, with his last breath, "Now everything personal is obliterated."
E. O. and W. O.

COMRADES Comedy in Four Acts
CHARACTERS
AXEL, an artist BERTHA, his wife, artist ABEL, her friend WILLMER, litterateur ?STERMARK, a doctor MRS. HALL, his divorced wife THE MISSES HALL, her daughters by a second marriage CARL STARCK, lieutenant MRS. STARCK, his wife MAID
COMRADES
[SCENE for the whole play.--An artist's studio in Paris; it is on the ground floor, has glass windows looking out on an orchard. At back of scene a large window and door to hall. On the walls hang studies, canvases, weapons, costumes and plaster casts. To right there is