SOURCE: Spencer, Charles. “A Marrowing Odyssey to the Heart of Marital Hell.” Daily Telegraph (November 21, 2001): 21.

Below, Spencer offers a review of the production of The Dance of Death at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, directed by David Hunt.

What a tremendous terrifying play The Dance of Death (1900) is. And how terrific to see a regional theatre staging Strindberg—a dramatist usually regarded as box-office poison—with such passion, commitment and shockingly black humour.

Strindberg discovered long before Jean-Paul Sartre that hell is other people. On the evidence of this play—one of his most autobiographical—he was also a nightmare houseguest. After one of his periodic bouts of insanity, Strindberg sought refuge with his sister, Anna, who had given up her career as a violinist to marry Hugo Philp, a teacher. Strindberg being Strindberg, he naturally fancied his sister, and before long developed an intense hatred for her unexceptionable...