influence of Edgar Allan Poe, with whose works Strindberg had become acquainted a short while before. The play was first printed in one of the three thin volumes of varied contents put out by Strindberg in 1890 and 1891 under the common title of "Pieces Printed and Unprinted." But, strange to say, it was not put on the stage (except in a few private performances) until 1902, although, from a purely theatrical viewpoint, Strindberg—master of stagecraft though he was—had rarely produced a more effective piece of work.

"Debit and Credit" belongs to the same general period as the previous play, but has in it more of Nietzsche than of Poe. Its central figure is also a sort of superman, but as such he is not taken too seriously by his creator. The play has humour, but it is of a grim kind—one seems to be hearing the gritting of teeth through the laughter. Like "Simoom," however, it should be highly effective on the stage. It was first published in 1893, with three other one-act plays, the volume being named "Dramatic Pieces."

"Advent" was published in 1899, together with "There Are Crimes and Crimes," under the common title of "In a Higher Court." Its name refers, of course, to the ecclesiastical designation of the four weeks preceding Christmas. The subtitle, literally rendered, would be "A Mystery." But as this term has a much wider application in Swedish than in English, I have deemed it better to observe the distinction which the latter language makes between mysteries, miracle-plays, and moralities.

The play belongs to what Strindberg called his "Inferno period," during which he struggled in a state of semi-madness to rid himself of the neurasthenic depression which he regarded as a punishment brought about by his previous attitude of materialistic scepticism. It is full of Swedenborgian symbolism, which, perhaps, finds its most characteristic expression in the two scenes laid in "The Waiting Room." The name selected by Strindberg for the region where dwell the "lost" souls of men is not a mere euphemism. It signifies his conception of that place as a station on the road to redemption or annihilation.

In its entirety the play forms a Christmas sermon with a quaint blending of law and gospel. A prominent Swedish critic, Johan Mortensen, wrote: "Reading it, one almost gets the feeling that Strindberg, the dread revolutionist, has, of a sudden, changed into a nice village school-teacher, seated at his desk, with his rattan cane laid out in front of him. He has just been delivering a lesson in Christianity, and he has noticed that the attention of the children strayed and that they either failed to understand or did not care to take in the difficult matters he was dealing with. But they must be made to listen and understand. And so—with serious eyes, but with a sly smile playing around the corners of his mouth—he begins all over again, in that fairy-tale style which never grows old: 'Once upon a time!'"

In November, 1907, a young theatrical manager, August Falck, opened the Intimate Theatre at Stockholm. From the start Strindberg was closely connected with the venture, and soon the little theatre, with its tiny stage and its auditorium seating only one hundred and seventy-five persons, was turned wholly into a Strindberg stage, where some of the most interesting and daring theatrical experiments of our own day were made. With particular reference to the needs and limitations of this theatre, Strindberg wrote a series of "chamber plays," four of which were published in 1907—each one of them appearing separately in a paper-covered duodecimo volume.

The first of these plays to appear in book form—though not the first one to be staged—was "The Thunder-Storm," designated on the front cover as "Opus I." Two of the principal ideas underlying its construction were the abolition of intermissions—which, according to Strindberg, were put in chiefly for the benefit of the liquor traffic in the theatre café—and the reduction of the stage-setting to quickly inter-changeable backgrounds and a few stage-properties. Concerning the production of "The Thunder-Storm," at the Intimate Theatre, Strindberg wrote subsequently that, in their decorative effects, the first and last scenes were rather failures. But he held the lack of space wholly responsible for this failure. His conclusion was that the most difficult problem of the small theatre would be to give the illusion of distance required by a scene laid in the open—particularly in an open place surrounded or adjoined by buildings. Of the second act he wrote, on the other hand, that it proved a triumph of artistic simplification. The only furniture appearing on the stage consisted of a buffet, a piano, a dinner-table and a few chairs—that is, the pieces expressly mentioned in the text of the play. And yet the effect of the setting satisfied equally the demands of the eye and the reason.

"The Thunder-Storm" might be called a drama of old age—nay, the drama of man's inevitable descent through a series of resignations to the final dissolution. Its subject-matter is largely autobiographical, embodying the author's experiences in his third and last marriage, as seen in retrospect—the anticipatory conception appearing in "Swanwhite." However, justice to Miss Harriet Bosse, who was Mrs. Strindberg from 1901 to 1904, requires me to point out that echoes of the dramatist's second marriage also appear, especially in the references to the postmarital relationship.

"After the Fire" was published as "Opus II" of the chamber-plays, and staged ahead of "The Thunder-Storm." Its Swedish name is Brända Tomten, meaning literally "the burned-over site." This name has previously been rendered in English as "The Burned Lot" and "The Fire Ruins." Both these titles are awkward and ambiguous. The name I have now chosen embodies more closely the fundamental premise of the play.

The subject-matter is even more autobiographical than that of "The Thunder-Storm"—almost as much so as "The Bondwoman's Son." The perished home is Strindberg's own at the North Tollgate Street in Stockholm, where he spent the larger part of his childhood and youth. The old Mason, the Gardener, the Stone-Cutter, and other figures appearing in the play are undoubtedly lifted straight out of real life—and so are probably also the exploded family reputation and the cheap table painted to represent ebony—although one may take for granted that the process has not taken place without a proper disguising of externals.

There is one passage in this little play which I want to point out as containing one of the main keys to Strindberg's character and art. It is the passage where The Stranger—who, of course, is none but the author himself—says to his brother: "I have beheld life from every quarter, from every standpoint, from above and from below, but always it has seemed to me like a scene staged for my particular benefit."

SWANWHITE

(SVANEHVIT)

A FAIRY PLAY

1902

CHARACTERS

THE DUKE
THE STEPMOTHER
SWANWHITE
THE PRINCE
SIGNE }
ELSA   } Maids
TOVA  }
THE KITCHEN GARDENER
THE FISHERMAN
THE MOTHER OF SWANWHITE
THE MOTHER OF THE PRINCE
THE GAOLER
THE EQUERRY
THE BUTLER
THE FLOWER GARDENER
TWO KNIGHTS

An apartment in a mediæval stone castle. The walls and the cross-vaulted ceiling are whitewashed. In the centre of the rear wall is a triple-arched doorway leading to a balcony with a stone balustrade. There are draperies of brocade over the doorway. Beyond the balcony appear the top branches of a rose-garden, laden with white and pink roses. In the background there can be seen a white, sandy beach and the blue sea.

To the right of the main doorway is a small door which, when left open, discloses a vista of