The Road to Damascus | Page 7

sojourn there,
that he had no call for the monastic life.
Seen as a whole the trilogy marks a turning point in Strindberg's
dramatic production. The logical, calculated concentration of his
naturalistic work of the 1880's has given way to a freer form of
composition, in which the atmosphere has come to mean more than the
dialogue, the musical and dreamlike qualities more than conciseness.
The Road to Damascus abounds with details from real life, reproduced
in sharply naturalistic manner, but these are not, as things were in his
earlier works viewed by the author a priori as reality but become
wrapped in dreamlike mystery. Just as with Lady Julia and The Father
Strindberg ushered in the naturalistic drama of the 1880's, so in the
years around the turn of the century he was, with his symbolist cycle
The Road to Damascus, to break new ground for European drama
which had gradually become stuck in fixed formulas. The Road to
Damascus became a landmark in world literature both as a brilliant
work of art and as bearer of new stage technique.
GUNNAR OLLÉN
Translated by ESTHER JOHANSON

PART ONE
CHARACTERS
THE STRANGER THE LADY THE BEGGAR THE DOCTOR HIS
SISTER AN OLD MAN A MOTHER AN ABBESS A CONFESSOR
less important figures FIRST MOURNER SECOND MOURNER
THIRD MOURNER LANDLORD CAESAR WAITER
non-speaking A SMITH MILLER'S WIFE FUNERAL
ATTENDANTS
SCENES

SCENE I Street Corner SCENE XVII SCENE II Doctor's House
SCENE XVI SCENE III Room in an Hotel SCENE XV SCENE IV By
the Sea SCENE XIV SCENE V On the Road SCENE XIII SCENE VI
In a Ravine SCENE XII SCENE VII In a Kitchen SCENE XI SCENE
VIII The 'Rose' Room SCENE X SCENE IX Convent
AUGUST STRINDBERG
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS PART ONE
English Version by GRAHAM RAWSON
First Performance in England by the Stage Society at the Westminster
Theatre, 2nd May 1937
CAST
THE STRANGER Francis James THE LADY Wanda Rotha THE
BEGGAR Alexander Sarner FIRST MOURNER George Cormack
SECOND MOURNER Kenneth Bell THIRD MOURNER Peter
Bennett FOURTH MOURNER Bryan Sears FIFTH MOURNER
Michael Boyle SIXTH MOURNER Stephen Patrick THE
LANDLORD Stephen Jack THE DOCTOR Neil Porter HIS SISTER
Olga Martin CAESAR Peter Land A WAITER Peter Bennett AN OLD
MAN A. Corney Grain A MOTHER Frances Waring THE SMITH
Norman Thomas THE MILLER'S WIFE Julia Sandham AN ABBESS
Natalia Moya A CONFESSOR Tristan Rawson
PRODUCER Carl H. Jaffe ASSISTANT PRODUCER Ossia Trilling
SCENE I
STREET CORNER
[Street Corner with a seat under a tree; the side-door of a small Gothic
Church nearby; also a post office and a café with chairs outside it. Both
post office and café are shut. A funeral march is heard off, growing
louder sand then fainter. A STRANGER is standing on the edge of the

pavement and seems uncertain which way to go. A church clock strikes:
first the four quarters and then the hour. It is three o'clock. A LADY
enters and greets the STRANGER. She is about to pass him, but stops.]
STRANGER. It's you! I almost knew you'd come.
LADY. You wanted me: I felt it. But why are you waiting here?
STRANGER. I don't know. I must wait somewhere.
LADY. Who are you waiting for?
STRANGER. I wish I could tell you! For forty years I've been waiting
for something: I believe they call it happiness; or the end of
unhappiness. (Pause.) There's that terrible music again. Listen! But
don't go, I beg you. I'll feel afraid, if you do.
LADY. We met yesterday for the first time; and talked for four hours.
You roused my sympathy, but you mustn't abuse my kindness on that
account.
STRANGER. I know that well enough. But I beg you not to leave me.
I'm a stranger here, without friends; and my few acquaintances seem
more like enemies.
LADY. You have enemies everywhere. You're lonely everywhere.
Why did you leave your wife and children?
STRANGER. I wish I knew. I wish I knew why I still live; why I'm
here now; where I should go and what I should do! Do you believe that
the living can be damned already?
LADY. No.
STRANGER. Look at me.
LADY. Hasn't life brought you a single pleasure?
STRANGER. Not one! If at any time I thought so, it was merely a trap

to tempt me to prolong my miseries. If ripe fruit fell into my hand, it
was poisoned or rotten at the core.
LADY. What is your religion--if you'll forgive the question?
STRANGER. Only this: that when I can bear things no longer, I shall
go.
LADY. Where?
STRANGER. Into annihilation. If I don't hold life in my hand, at least I
hold death. ... It gives me an amazing feeling of power.
LADY. You're playing with death!
STRANGER. As I've played with life. (Pause.)