The stellar cast of Strindberg’s The Dance of Death bring this classic to life in a way that is thrilling, dangerous, funny, and delightful. Edgar (Colin Friels), an artillery captain who never made major, and Alice (Pamela Rabe), an actress who gave away her career (Don’t you know who I was?), are approaching their 25th wedding anniversary. They live in a castle on an island that once served as a prison where ‘even the children went gray.’ This haunting landscape is brought to life in a breathtaking way by the highly decorated designer Brian Thomson AM. Let’s say there’s something akin to a moat that may be filled with blood, and leave it at that. Keeping this set afloat and in working order must a Herculean task for stage management (Luke McGettigan and Khym Scott). At the top of the action the couple are almost too stricken with ennui to move, but are invigorated by the arrival of Alice’s cousin, the young and debonair Kurt (Toby Schmitz). The ensuing conflict takes marital bickering to mesmerising extremes.
Johan August Strindberg (1849 – 1912) was a Swedish writer, who wrote over 60 plays. The Dance of Death was written in 1900, but nine years passed before it was produced on a Swedish stage. The author struggled to find the recognition inside Sweden that he garnered from other European centres, especially Denmark and Germany. His own life was at times turbulent: he suffered from poor mental health, with several acute breakdowns, and experienced three disastrous marriages, which saw him separated from his children, and locked in a cycle of poverty. These events are all laid bare in The Dance of Death: this is a writer who served up life as he knew it to the theatre. It’s delicious, brutal naturalism, until it suddenly isn’t; until we are in the midst of the expressionistic, and the thrill of the supernatural.
This production, which embraces Strindbergian darkness with glee, is directed by the acclaimed actor Judy Davis. She writes in the program that Strindberg, at his best, was fuelled by courage and brutal honesty, often confronting turbulent and dark forces in his writing. She writes that he was never lured down the path of ‘social issue’ plays; that what we see here are all the survival strategies that have evolved over twenty-five long years of marriage.
Belvoir’s production offers actors at the apex of their profession, daring set and lighting (Matt Scott) design, and a plot that it’s impossible to get ahead of. I was particularly aware of the way Strindberg managed the slow release of information; I was clamoring for the next revelation. Highly recommended.
Playing at the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St until 23 December.