A Danish theatre group with a Swedish director, calling themselves the New Scandinavian Experimental Theatre, presented a provocative staging of Strindberg's Miss Julie in Copenhagen in April 1992. It was received with enthusiasm by the group of Strindberg scholars at the International Strindberg Conference being held in Copenhagen at that time. What was it about this production which was so appealing? The following three articles attempt to demonstrate different ways of approaching this production in retrospect — that is to say almost one year later. The first is mainly concerned with the actress playing Julie, the second is concerned with the director's concept and how this was realized on stage, whilst the third is interested in placing this production in the context of the Scandinavian Strindberg tradition.

The theme of Strindberg's Miss Julie (Fröken Julie, 1888), the struggle for sexual ascendancy between a liberated young woman and an ambitious young man who is her social inferior, continues to hold fascination even in times such as our own, which purport to be sexually liberated, socially egalitarian, and feminist. Perhaps, one might speculate, fascination with the play, its characters, and its situation is especially intense in such times. Certainly awareness of an interest in sexual politics have not lessened in the century since the play appeared. Since it has been a century dominated to a large extent by the theories of Dr Sigmund Freud, this is hardly surprising.

If by a classic one means a work of art which has the ability to remain alive through various epochs and continue to engage people's attention, then the word is suitable to describe Birgit Cullberg's ballet Miss Julie. Perhaps one ought to adjust the notion slightly and describe the ballet as a ‘modern classic’, because we do not know how it will have endured in, let us say, fifty or a hundred years.

On 1 December 1987, the production team for Strindberg's last and least performed chamber play, The Black Glove (Svarta Handsken) written in 1909, had gathered in one of the rehearsal rooms at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten) in Stockholm. Wilhelm Carlsson, the director of the performance, started by explaining to the producer, the scenographer, the dramaturg, the composer, the actors and the other members of the team who were present, as well as myself who was going to follow the rehearsals, all in all about twenty people, that he had never directed Strindberg before, except for an exercise with Miss Julie during his training as a director at Dra-matiska Institutet in Stockholm. His plan was then to present this much more frequently performed piece with an on-stage double bed and to have Kristin leave the room when the relations between Jean and Julie become intimate.

The houses Strindberg describes in his stage directions for the chamber plays demand a great deal of sheer physical space. A part of a practical, dramaturgical reality that calls for visualization, they constitue an integral part of the setting. It has in fact been said that in Strindberg's chamber plays ‘houses are the main characters’.

On 15 September 1992 one of the most important new operas written in Scandinavia had its opening night at The Royal Opera House, Stockholm. The opera, based on Strindberg's A Dream Play, libretto and music by Ingvar Lidholm, was long awaited and surpassed the highest expectations. The score has a prelude and two acts, (duration two hours and twenty minutes, pause excluded) and requires a large orchestra, an extended percussion section, mixed chorus, children's chorus and fifteen roles.

Of nineteenth century Swedish writers, August Strindberg was almost alone in displaying any interest in the predecessors to the moving film. On one occasion, during the conception of ‘Tschandala’, his interest in moving, projected pictures led him to a literary fantasy of a greatly suggestive power.

Strindberg's Fadren/The Father (1887) opens with an episode — relating to the orderly Nöjd — which is a little drama in itself. We are immediately introduced to an intricate situation which moreover is said to have universal application. Rarely has a dramatist been able to involve his audience so quickly in the action unfolding before their eyes. The opening of The Father excellently illustrates Strindberg's view that theatre should be a weapon aimed at our deepest emotions.

August Strindberg was employed at the Royal Library from the end of 1874 to August 1882 – ‘rising from the proletariat class and carrying the legal title of royal secretary and temporary assistant librarian’, as it is said of Johan in Tjänstekvinnans son (The Son of a Servant). Strindberg himself carried this title with pride and had it printed on his visiting card. This was his only more permanent position in the public service and was a qualification which he would refer to many times later in his life. Presumably it would have gladdened him to know that his former place of employment would come to house the largest collection of his manuscripts and letters.

The National Edition is the largest project ever undertaken in Sweden in honour of its greatest author, and proposes to publish everything produced by Strindberg with the exception of his 10,000 letters. The rate of publication is five volumes per year. Of the seventy-five titles planned, thirty-one are so far published.

On 26 November 1907 Strindberg finally succeeded in opening a theatre of his own in Stockholm: Intima teatern. He did so with an unpublished chamber play: Pelikanen (The Pelican). The newspapers covered the event extensively. Intima teatern was referred to as ‘a literary theatre’.