August Strindberg Repertory Theatre (www.strindberg.org), which was formed in 2012 to illuminate Strindberg's plays for today's American audiences, will present the English language premiere of Strindberg's "Mr. Bengt's Wife" (1882), directed by Craig Baldwin (Associate Artistic Director of Red Bull Theater) September 6 to 29, 2013 at the Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street, where August Strindberg Rep is the resident company. "Mr. Bengt's Wife" has been characterized as Strindberg's answer to Ibsen's "The Doll's House." It utilizes realism, expressionism, melodrama and dreamscape to tell the story of the rebellious Margit, whose quest to become an independent New Woman catapults her from a convent to a castle, where her husband and two lovers vie for her attention.
A new translation by Laurence Carr and Malin Tybahl makes this undiscovered masterpiece accessible to modern American audiences. It has never before been translated into English and has been performed only five times previously: in Stockholm in1882, Cologne in1908, Vienna in 1914 (the Austrian Church demanded that it close after two performances), Berlin in 1920 and most recently, in Stockholm in 1971. The Strindbergian theme of marriage as an emotional battleground is strongly stated and there are absurdist elements foreshadowing such Strindbergian signature works as "The Dream Play."The play was originally set during the Protestant Reformation in Sweden, when convents were closing and the church became Lutheran. Its lead character, a high-spirited orphan girl named Margit, is physically and emotionally abused in the convent that has taken her in. Rescued from the convent by a mounted nobleman named Mr. Bengt, she marries this hero expecting a life of fantasies. He idealizes her and disguises his financial perils not to trouble her. But the lie catches up to him; the marriage, like the convent before, begins to feel like a cage to Margit. After a short time together, Bengt is bankrupted by poor crops and the marriage falls apart. Margit applies to the King of Sweden for a divorce and receives one, legally, but is treated like a pariah for leaving her husband. She is visited repeatedly by two men: her confessor from the convent (who may symbolize her conscience) and an old childhood friend, now a bailiff, who comes to comfort and seduce her. The play's shocking resolution challenges the audience to wonder if the whole story was a dream. The play was a star vehicle for the author's wife, Siri Von Essen, when it debuted in Stockholm in 1882.Videos