Armand Gatti is a recognized writer of politically committed plays. Jean-Paul Sartre speaking from the stage of the Théâtre National Populaire (T.N.P.) in Paris after the banning there of Gatti's La Passion du Général Franco saluted him as a leading exponent, along with Brecht, Gorki and Dürrenmatt of the popular theatre of the sixties.

Patrice Pavis offers an excellent analysis of ostension in his dictionary of theatre. Ostension (Latin ostendere, to show), he writes, is an essential feature of performance. The expression ‘theatrical ostension’ calls to mind quite naturally the notions of set, stage properties, body motions, and so on. In addition to purely visual elements, ostension also refers to verbal signals. But ostension is rarely total; one often sees only fragments of the dramatic world. Ostension is a relative notion modulated by elements that are not shown or not clearly shown. Synecdoche (the part for the whole) is one possible mode of ostension: the director suggests a complex reality by a characteristic detail: a crown for the King … Performance often resorts to metaphor: one element conjures up another. Pavis concludes that a stylistics or rhetoric of ostension would be a most precious tool for performance analysis.

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’.

Lawrence Stone, Princeton Professor Emeritus of History, has recently declared that ‘every cultural enterprise, even science, is at least in part a social construction’. Biologist Jay Gould vehemently agrees. ‘Science’, says Gould, ‘is done by individuals, whose conclusions are influenced by the beliefs they bring with them.’ The contamination factor is unavoidable. On the other hand, Erwin Schrodinger, the renowned quantum physicist, brought to biology experimental truths that may take us to the edge of the universe. For him, the contamination factor was intentional. Beginning in the 1940s, his work had a direct effect on the writings of Samuel Beckett.

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.

Both actor and translator, and by extension translation and performance suffer the plight of second hand art. Disloyal to their original masters they commit adultery. Thus, translation and performance become the unfortunate bastards of literature. If translation is meant to overcome the difference between itself and its other, performance is accused of playing it out and playing up. Such is the attitude which both have shared in each of their respective literary histories. The emphasis here is on literary history, for it assumes the tyranny of the text, the sacredness of the word. The quest for the origin, the reconstruction of the original greatness will always follow the linear path to the bastardized version, towards its own inferiorization. Precisely because translation and performance share this secondary status, this paper will adopt the metaphor of translation and adapt it to describe the relationship between text and performance. Translation here will be taken as that process which underlies any meaning production; it will not be reduced to a merely linguistic motion, nor seen in the form of an obvious reduplication, but as a complex interrelation between two elements. We will thus examine the translatory processes between text and performance before exposing the most illegitimate member in this affair: the translated dramatic text.

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.