Monday, November 16, 2009

Describe A Dream Play by August Strindberg.

A Dream Play was written by Swedish playwright August Strindberg in 1907. The play that spawned the creation of the dramatic Expressionism movement.


Expressionism was a modernist movement in theater that developed primarily in Germany, but there were practitioners of the movement throughout Europe. Expressionism is a style that often dramatizes spiritual awakenings and the suffering of protagonists, which are sometimes related to the suffering of Jesus. The narratives of these plays are usually concerned with the struggle between bourgeois values and authority. Sometimes these struggles become symbolized through a conflict between a father and a son. 


In A Dream Play, a character named Agnes is a daughter of the god Indra. She comes to Earth to describe the problems of Earth. While on Earth, Agnes meets with around 40 characters. Each of these characters represents something larger than them, such as philosophy or medicine. (In this way, the play may remind some readers of Brecht and Brecht's Epic Theatre.) After hearing these problems, Agnes decides humans must be pitied. She returns to heaven and the play is described as someone awakening from a dream. 

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