The Dance of Death

Full Text and Introduction

August Strindberg, Stephen Mulrine

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781788502436
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

Strindberg's chilling anatomy of a marriage - in which the two partners duel with each other until one is utterly defeated.

Edgar and Alice, embittered husband and wife, live on an army base on a Swedish island. Alice calls it 'Little Hell', and it's about to get worse.

Written in 1900 and consisting of two full-length plays, August Strindberg's The Dance of Death is full of destruction and bitterness, laced with grim humour. Both parts are included in this volume – though usually only the first is staged.

This version of The Dance of the Death in Nick Hern Books' Drama Classics series is translated and introduced by Stephen Mulrine.

THE DANCE OF DEATH

Part I

Characters

EDGAR, Captain in the artillery garrison

ALICE, his wife, formerly an actress

KURT, Quarantine Master

JENNY, a maid

OLD WOMAN

SENTRY (non-speaking)

Setting

The interior of a round fortress-tower built of granite. Upstage, a large double doorway with glass doors, through which can be seen a seashore, with gun emplacements, and the sea.

On either side of the doorway is a window, with flower-boxes and bird-cages.

To the right of the doorway, an upright piano; downstage from this, a sewing-table and two armchairs.

To the left, centre stage, a writing-desk with a telegraph machine; further downstage, a whatnot with a display of framed photographs; beside it, a chaise-longue, and against the wall, a sideboard.

A ceiling lamp. On the wall by the piano hang two large laurel wreaths with ribbons attached, on either side of a portrait of a woman in theatrical costume.

By the doorway, a coat-stand hung with military accoutrements, sabres and the like. Next to it, a secretaire.

To the left of the doorway hangs a mercury barometer.

ACT ONE

Scene One

It is a mild autumn evening. The fortress doors stand open, and an artilleryman can be seen on sentry duty down by the shore battery. He is wearing a crested helmet, and now and again his sabre glints in the red glow of the setting sun. The sea is dark and calm.

The CAPTAIN is sitting in an armchair to the left of the sewing-table, toying with a spent cigar. He is wearing a rather shabby undress uniform, with riding-boots and spurs. He looks tired and bored.

ALICE is sitting in an armchair to the right, doing nothing. She also looks tired, but seems expectant.

CAPTAIN. Play something for me, won’t you?

ALICE (apathetically, but not harshly). What shall I play?

CAPTAIN. Whatever you want.

ALICE. You don’t like my choice of music.

CAPTAIN. And you don’t like mine.

ALICE. (evasively). D’you want the doors left open?

CAPTAIN. If that’s what you want. I’m quite warm.

ALICE. We’ll leave them, then. (A pause.) Why aren’t you smoking?

CAPTAIN. I don’t like strong tobacco these days. It doesn’t agree with me.

ALICE (almost kindly). You should smoke something milder. It’s your only pleasure, as you say.

CAPTAIN. Pleasure! What’s that?

ALICE. Don’t ask me. I know as little about it as you. Don’t you want your whisky now?

CAPTAIN. I’ll wait a while. What’ve you got for dinner?

ALICE. How should I know? Ask Kristin.

CAPTAIN. Isn’t it about time for mackerel? It is autumn, after all.

ALICE. Yes, it’s autumn.

CAPTAIN. Outdoors and in. Even so, leaving aside the chill that comes with autumn, outdoors and in, a grilled mackerel with a slice of lemon, and a glass of white burgundy, isn’t entirely to be despised.

ALICE. You’re getting quite eloquent.

CAPTAIN. Have we any burgundy left in the wine-cellar?

ALICE. As far as I know, we haven’t had a wine-cellar these past five years.

CAPTAIN. You never know anything. Anyway, we’d better stock up for our silver wedding.

ALICE. You honestly want to celebrate that?

CAPTAIN. Well, naturally.

ALICE. It’d be more natural if we kept our misery private – our twenty-five years of misery.

CAPTAIN. Yes, my dear Alice, it’s been miserable, but it’s been fun too, now and again. And we’d better make use of the little time we have, because afterwards it’s all over.

ALICE. All over? If only it were.

CAPTAIN. It is all over! Barely enough left to take out in a wheelbarrow and spread on the garden.

ALICE. All that trouble, for a bit of garden.

CAPTAIN. Well, that’s how things are. It’s none of my doing.

ALICE. All that trouble! (A pause.) Did the post come?

CAPTAIN. Yes.

ALICE. And has the butcher sent his bill?

CAPTAIN. Yes.

ALICE. How much is it?

CAPTAIN (takes a piece of paper from his pocket and puts on his spectacles, then immediately removes them again). You read it. I can’t see any longer.

ALICE. What’s the matter with your eyes?

CAPTAIN. Don’t know.

ALICE. Old age.

CAPTAIN. Rubbish! Me?

ALICE. Well, not me.

CAPTAIN. Hm!

ALICE (looks at the bill). Can you pay this?

CAPTAIN. Yes – but not right now.

ALICE. Oh yes – later. In a year’s time, when you’re retired on a small pension and it’s too late. And then you’ll be ill again . . .

CAPTAIN. Ill? I’ve never been ill. A little out of sorts once, that’s all. I’ll live for another twenty years.

ALICE. That’s not what the doctor said.

CAPTAIN. The doctor!

ALICE. Yes, well, who knows illness better than a doctor?

CAPTAIN. I’m not ill, and never have been. And I won’t be ill either, I’ll just drop dead some day, like an old soldier.

ALICE. Talking of the doctor, you know he’s having a party this evening?

CAPTAIN (irritated). Yes, so what? We’re not invited because we don’t mix with these people, and we don’t mix with them because we don’t want to – because I despise the pair of them. They’re scum!

ALICE. You say that about everybody.

CAPTAIN. Because everybody is scum.

ALICE. Except you, of course.

CAPTAIN. Yes, because I’ve behaved decently no matter what life has thrown at me. That’s why I’m not scum.

ALICE (after a pause). D’you want a game of cards?

CAPTAIN. All right.

ALICE (takes a pack from the sewing-table drawer and begins to shuffle them). You know he’s allowed to have the regimental band? For a private party?

CAPTAIN (angrily). That’s because he sucks up to the Colonel in town! He’s a crawler, that’s all. Now, if I’d known how to do that!

ALICE (deals). I used to be quite friendly with Gerda, but she turned out to be two-faced.

CAPTAIN. They’re all two-faced, the whole lot of them. What did you make trumps?

ALICE. Put your glasses on!

CAPTAIN. They’re not much use. Well, come on . . .

ALICE. Spades are trumps.

CAPTAIN (disappointed). Spades, you say?

ALICE (plays a card). Anyway, be that as it may – we’re out of favour with the new officers’ wives as well.

CAPTAIN (plays and takes the trick). Who cares? We don’t give parties, so nobody’s any the wiser. I can get by on my own – same as I always have done.

ALICE. And me. But what about the children? They’re growing up without any friends.

CAPTAIN. They can find their own friends in town. Now, I’ll take that! Have you any trumps left?

ALICE. Yes, I’ve got one. That was mine!

CAPTAIN. Six and eight, that’s fifteen . . .

ALICE. Fourteen, fourteen!

CAPTAIN. Six and eight, that’s fourteen to me . . . I think I’m even forgetting how to count. And two, that makes sixteen . . . (Yawns.) It’s your deal . . .

ALICE. You’re tired.

CAPTAIN (deals). Not at all.

ALICE (listening). You can hear the music even out here. (A pause.) D’you think Kurt’s been invited?

CAPTAIN. Well, he arrived this morning, so he’ll have had no time to unpack his dress suit, though he hasn’t managed to call on us.

ALICE. Quarantine Master . . . is there going to be a quarantine station here?

CAPTAIN. Yes.

ALICE. I mean, he is my cousin, and we once shared the same name.

CAPTAIN. That’s no great honour . . .

ALICE. Now, you listen . . . (Sharply.) You leave my family out of it, and I’ll leave yours!

CAPTAIN. All right, all right! Don’t let’s start that again!

ALICE. So, is a quarantine officer a doctor?

CAPTAIN. No. Some sort of civil servant, or book-keeper. Kurt’s never amounted to much.

ALICE. He’s not had it easy . . .

CAPTAIN. No, and he’s cost me plenty. And walking out on his wife and child like that, it was disgraceful!

ALICE. Oh, don’t be so hard on him, Edgar!

CAPTAIN. Well, it was. And what’s he been up to in America since, eh? No, I can’t say I’m exactly overjoyed about seeing him. Still, he was a pleasant enough lad, and I used to like arguing with him.

ALICE. Because he always gave in.

CAPTAIN (haughtily). Gave in or not, at least it was somebody to talk to. I mean, here on this island, there isn’t a single person wh...