Read Ebook: The Road to Damascus a Trilogy by Strindberg August Oll N Gunnar Commentator Rawson Graham Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1065 lines and 58435 words, and 22 pages

INTRODUCTION PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE

INTRODUCTION

Many authors have, of course, dealt with the profoundest problems of humanity without, on that account, having been able to evoke our interest. There may have been too much philosophy and too little art in the presentation of the subject, too little reality and too much soaring into the heights. That is not so with Strindberg's drama. It is a trenchant settling of accounts between a complex and fascinating individual--the author--and his past, and the realistic scenes have often been transplanted in detail from his own changeful life.

'I am going to hospital because I am ill, because my doctor has sent me there, and because I need to be looked after like a child, because I am ruined.... And it torments me and grieves me, my nervous system is rotten, paralytic, hysterical....'

Never before had Strindberg lived in such distress as at this period, both physically and mentally. With shattered nerves, sometimes over the verge of insanity, without any means of existence other than what friends managed to scrape together, separated from his second wife, who had opened proceedings for divorce, far from his native land and without any prospects for the future, he was brought to a profound religious crisis. With almost incredible fortitude he succeeded in fighting his way through this difficult period, with the remarkable result that the former Bohemian, atheist, and scoffer was gradually able to emerge with the firm assurance of a prophet, and even enter a new creative period, perhaps mightier than before. One cannot help reflecting that a man capable of overcoming a crisis of such a formidable character and of several years' duration, as this one of Strindberg's had been, with reason intact and even with increased creative power, in reality, in spite of his hypersensitive nervous system, must have been an unusually strong man both physically and mentally.

Upon trying to define more closely what actual relation the play has to those events of Strindberg's restless life, of which we have given a rough outline, we find that for the most part the author has undoubtedly made use of his own experiences, but has adapted, combined and added to them still more, so that the result is a mixture of real experience and imagination, all moulded into a carefully worked out artistic form.

Those scenes where THE STRANGER is uncertain whether the people he sees before him are real or not--he catches hold of THE BEGGAR'S arm to feel whether he is a real, live person--or those occasions when he appears as a visionary or thought-reader--he describes the kitchen in his wife's parental home without ever having seen it, and knows her thoughts before she has expressed them--have their deep foundation in Strindberg's mental make-up, especially as it was during the period of tension in the middle of the 1890's, termed the Inferno period, because at that time Strindberg thought that he lived in hell. Our most prominent student of Strindberg, Professor Martin Lamm, wrote about this in his work on Strindberg's dramas:

'We made a mistake when we were living together, because we accused each other of wicked thoughts before they'd become actions; and lived in mental reservations instead of realities. For instance, I once noticed how you enjoyed the defiling gaze of a strange man, and I accused you of unfaithfulness';

to which THE LADY, to Strindberg's satisfaction, has to reply:

'You were wrong to do it, and right. Because my thoughts were sinful.'

Even minor characters, such as CAESAR and THE BEGGAR have their counterparts in real life, even though in the main they are fantastic creations of his imagination. The guardian of his daughter, Kerstin, a relative of Frida Uhl's, was called Dr. C?sar R. v. Weyr. Regarding THE BEGGAR it may be enough to quote Strindberg's feelings when confronted with the collections made by his Paris friends:

'I am a beggar who has no right to go to caf?s. Beggar! That is the right word; it rings in my ears and brings a burning blush to my cheeks, the blush of shame, humiliation, and rage!

'To think that six weeks ago I sat at this table! My theatre manager addressed me as Dear Master; journalists strove to interview me, the photographer begged to be allowed to sell my portrait. And now: a beggar, a branded man, an outcast from society!'

Besides having his belief in the rapture of love shattered, THE STRANGER also suffers disappointment at seeing his child fall short of expectations. The meeting between the daughter Sylvia and THE STRANGER probably refers to an episode from the summer of 1899, when Strindberg, after long years of suffering in foreign countries, saw his beloved Swedish skerries again, and also his favourite daughter Greta, who had come over from Finland to meet him. Contrary to the version given in the drama, the reunion of father and daughter seems to have been very happy and cordial. However, it is typical of the fate-oppressed Strindberg that in his work even the happiest summer memories become tinged with black. Once and for all the dark colours on his palette were the most intense.

The final entry into the monastery was more a symbol for the struggling author's dream of peace and atonement than a real thing in his life. It is true he visited the Benedictine monastery, Maredsous, in Belgium in 1898, and its well stocked library came to play a certain part In the drama, but already he realised, after one night's sojourn there, that he had no call for the monastic life.

GUNNAR OLL?N

Translated by ESTHER JOHANSON

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

English Version by Graham Rawson

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

First Performance in England by the Stage Society at the Westminster Theatre, 2nd May 1937

CAST

PRODUCER Carl H. Jaffe ASSISTANT PRODUCER Ossia Trilling

SCENE I

STREET CORNER

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. 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. I was a writer. But in spite of my melancholy temperament I've never been able to take anything seriously--not even my worst troubles. Sometimes I even doubt whether life itself has had any more reality than my books. They're coming back. Why must they process up and down these streets?

LADY. Do you fear them?

STRANGER. They annoy me. The place might be bewitched. No, it's not death I fear, but solitude; for then one's not alone. I don't know who's there, I or another, but in solitude one's not alone. The air grows heavy and seems to engender invisible beings, who have life and whose presence can be felt.

LADY. You've noticed that?

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet