SOURCE: Kingston, Jeremy. “Fairytale Love Among the Archetypes.” The Times London (December 3, 1996).

Below, Kingston presents a review of the production of Swanwhite directed by Timothy Walker.

This charmingly peculiar fairytale shows how much there is of Strindberg that most of us know absolutely nothing about. The wife-taming Strindberg, yes, or rather the would-be wife-tamer; the dramatist of terrible family life, of lives unconvincingly redeemed by suffering, and plenty of lives not so redeemed; of strife under the Vasa kings (not that we are given many opportunities to see these).

Now that Timothy Walker has directed what is thought to be the British premiere of this full-length 1901 play written by, you might think, Hans Christian Strindberg, its characters of stern father, cruel stepmother, trusting maiden and loving prince obviously emerge from the same brainbox. But even if the simple starkness of the tale is what might be expected, the...