[In the following essay, Lide looks at the body of Strindberg's work that can be classified as comedy.]

In an article entitled ‘Why We Can't Help Genre-alizing and How Not to Go About It’, the American genre specialist Paul Hernadi proposes as one of two main theses that ‘all knowledge is genre-bound in both senses of the word: it is tied up with and directed towards conceptual classification.’ Hernadi quotes I. A. Richards's statements that ‘perception takes whatever it perceives as a thing of a certain sort’ and that ‘thinking, from the lowest to the highest—whatever else it may be—is sorting.’¹ Or, as Jan Myrdal phrased it, ‘it's the human aspect—you sort things out.’² As literary scholars, we consistently engage in such conceptual classification of the works we study in order to increase our knowledge of them. To use Hernadi's term, we ‘genrealize.’

Hernadi's second thesis is equally pertinent to our classification of literary texts: ‘The superabundance of potential knowledge and the corresponding generic overdetermination of all particulars demand polycentric rather than monolithic classifications.’³ While this premise is more complex than the first, it certainly is clear enough to those of us who tend to categorize literary works according to our own perception of them, often in the face of opposing classifications. Because of a multiplicity of meanings inherent in all discourse, perhaps especially in literary discourse—meanings dependent upon the perception of readers and spectators representing various cultures and historical periods—literary classification becomes a highly complex and often contradictory endeavour that in many cases not only demands, but also produces, polycentric classifications.

Thus we can read about Molière's contemporaries either applauding or rejecting Alceste, his misanthrope, as a comic figure; or about Rousseau's contemporaries perhaps seeing Alceste as ‘the unduly ridiculed hero of a tearful comedy’; whereas Goethe's contemporaries might regard him as tragic,⁴ an opinion echoed later by Brunetière, who saw both Le Misanthrope and Tartuffe as ‘bourgeois tragedies that Molière had tried in vain to place in the ranks of comedy.’⁵ Today we might ‘align Alceste with such tragicomic misanthropes as Shakespeare's Timon, Lessing's Tellheim, and Ionesco's Béranger in Rhinoceros.’⁶ Or we might see in Alceste nothing more than a ridiculous, pretentious, self-centred ass, without whom the members of his society—however small-minded they may be—are better off, in which case Le Misanthrope could be described as a comedy with a happy ending for most of the characters in the play, with Alceste's withdrawal representing the victory of comedy at the price of his defeat.⁷ Could we not, however, interpret the play as a comedy with a happy ending for Alceste, since he is perhaps better off to be rid of Celimène and her circle of friends?

It is in the light of such contradictory ‘genre-alizing’ that I shall discuss perspectives on what have been called Strindberg's comédies rosses. In my discussion, which will be limited to the two plays Första varningen (The First Warning) and Leka med elden (Playing with Fire), I shall also engage in some of my own ‘genre-alizing’, the purpose of which will be threefold: to perform the kind of sorting out activity that, it is hoped, will help us to increase our knowledge of the plays discussed; to argue, even at the risk of appearing to present a monolithic classification, against opposing views considered by some to be equally tenable; and, finally, to make a plea for a growing, yet still minority, view that there are indeed lighter, comic aspects of Strindberg's oeuvre than most people, who know Strindberg primarily as the creator of unsettling psychological dramas and tragedies of sexual conflict, are aware of.

Several years ago American theatregoers were treated to a production of Playing with Fire, which enjoyed a six-month run on a double bill with Miss Julie at the Roundabout Theatre in New York. The play proved to be more than merely a second-rate curtain raiser on a bill of two one-act plays. Judging by comments of many in the audience, who ‘never knew that Strindberg could be so funny—or so delightful’,⁸ people were pleased to be shown a side of Strindberg not often seen and not sufficiently appreciated, even in Sweden. In 1985, Eivor and Derek Martinus were involved in a London production of The First Warning, which prompted a good deal of laughter among the spectators. Like the audiences in New York who saw Playing with Fire, the London audiences who saw The First Warning showed their appreciation of Strindberg's comic spirit. As we shall see, however, reception of these two plays by academics has not always been as favourable.

First some background: Leka med elden and Första varningen belong to a group of six one-act plays—including also Debet och kredit, Inför döden, Moderskärlek, and Bandet—that Strindberg wrote in quick succession in 1892 and categorized under the heading ‘Ur det cyniska livet’ (From the Cynical Life—SS 19, p. 148). These plays are suitable for an experimental theatre with a small troop of actors and a limited budget, along the lines of André Antoine's famed Théâtre Libre in Paris, where Strindberg had at one time hoped to see productions of Fadren, Fröken Julie, and Fordringsägare.⁹ Their form is that which Strindberg, in his frequently quoted essay ‘Om modernt drama och modern teater’ (On Modern Drama and Modern Theatre), calls ‘den utförde enaktaren’, or ‘fully executed one-act play’ (SS 17, pp. 281-303), a form that has its roots in the proverbes of Carmontelle, was further developed by Leclerq, Musset, and Feuillet, and continued to evolve in France. It was employed by Strindberg's contemporary Henry Becque, whose play La Navette Strindberg not only admired but also regarded as a work approaching the ‘fully executed one-act play’ that he suggests might become the formula for the drama of the future (SS 17, p. 301).¹⁰

With the exception of the commentary accompanying them in their various editions, relatively little has been written about these plays. Maurice Valency, for example, devotes almost half a book to some of Strindberg's major dramas, but only half a sentence to the six one-acters, writing that the ‘short plays … [Strindberg] wrote in 1892 … do nothing to enhance his reputation.’¹¹ Birgitta Steene includes Första varningen among plays which she maintains—and, for the most part, rightly so—appear to be ‘mere trifles … when compared to most other dramas in the Strindberg canon.’¹² Steene at least classifies Leka med elden as ‘one of Strindberg's few comedies’ (p. 64), in contrast to a statement made several years earlier by Atos Wirtanen, that one could question whether Strindberg ‘någonsin skrev en enda genuin komedi’ (ever wrote a single genuine comedy).¹³ Walter Johnson, who customarily wrote lengthy introductory essays to accompany his translations of Strindberg's plays, provides his readers with only a short preface and a brief introduction to the volume Plays from the Cynical Life, which contains, with the exception of Bandet, the six one-act plays from 1892.¹⁴ Johnson's main judgement of these plays appears to be that they all ‘share the same gloomy view of human nature, human behaviour, and human society’ (p. v), and that all of them ‘are interpretations of human situations from a cynical point of view’ (p. 3). Nevertheless, he writes that the plays ‘should not be disregarded by any student of drama seeking to understand Strindberg's contribution’ (p. v). Johnson himself did at least grant Första varningen and Leka med elden more favourable criticism in another, previously written, context, in which he describes Första varningen as ‘perhaps the most delightfully amusing of all his [Strindberg's] short plays', a play in which he sees ‘such merits as excellent lines, amusing situations, and an interesting set of characters.’ Concerning Leka med elden, Johnson claims that ‘Strindberg never wrote a lighter play’, adding that ‘the roles are very good indeed, the lines excellent, and the solution amusing.’¹⁵ Egil Törnqvist has made a careful and penetrating analysis of Första varningen in terms of its structure, plot, theme, character depiction, setting, and symbolism. Concerning the comic elements and the lighter aspects of the play, however, Törnqvist's remarks are limited. While he does quote Barry Jacobs's comment that the comedy is ‘“more witty and playful than anything Strindberg wrote in the preceding period,” i.e. from 1886 to 1889’, Törnqvist himself states merely that ‘regarding genre’, the play is ‘what Strindberg himself … called a play “from the cynical life”, a comedy of sorts.’¹⁶ It was Børge Gedsø Madsen who linked both Första varningen and Leka med elden to the French comédies rosses, a genre that developed in France in the heyday of the Théâtre Libre (1887-1894). Gedsø Madsen presents brief analyses of the two plays; because he is interested in Strindberg's comédies rosses primarily as naturalistic dramas, however, he approaches them more as plays exemplary of the naturalistic tradition than as comedies.¹⁷

There has also been some decidedly negative criticism. Martin Lamm, for example, regards Första varningen as little more than an unsuccessful and ‘especially distasteful’ comic reworking of the jealousy motif in En dåres försvarstal.¹⁸Leka med elden does not fare much better under Lamm's scrutiny. After briefly discussing the play as a comedy in the French manner and comparing it to Sardou's farcical comedy of manners Divorçons!, he contrasts it with Sardou's play, a lighter and less cynical comedy, and criticizes Strindberg's play for being ‘brutal and depressing.’¹⁹ Lamm's reaction stands in marked contrast to that of audiences who saw the more recent New York and London productions of the plays.

One might suppose that such differing responses to the same works could be attributed to tastes changing throughout the years, allowing for audiences in our post-absurdist and post-theatre of cruelty age to be more receptive to Strindberg's so-called cynical comedies than they were when Lamm wrote his critical comments back around 1924. One must consider, however, that as early as 1910, Felix Salten, reviewing Mit dem Feuer spielen in Vienna, called the play ‘ein kleines Jewel von einem Lustspiel.’²⁰ Perhaps Lamm's reaction, in contrast to Salten's, is based not on a response to a theatrical performance of the play that brings out its inherent comic qualities, but on an interpretation of the text determined by and corresponding to the Erwartungshorizont prevailing in Sweden in the 1920s, when Max Reinhardt's productions of Strindberg's plays, stressing their demonic, mystic, and chaotic elements, still dominated the stages of Sweden and Germany. In order to help us understand the situation at that time, we might consider a comment by the critic Sven Wetterdal, who observed that, as soon as an actor was given a role in one of Strindberg's plays, he drew down the corners of his mouth as far as he could, spoke with a deep bass voice, wrinkled his forehead, rolled his eyes, hissed, gnashed his teeth, and generally behaved like a lascivious murderer in an older opera. The women transformed themselves into poisonous vampires with long claws and sharp tongues. Such was the so-called ‘strindbergstil’ (Strindberg style) that had spread throughout Europe.²¹ In short, in the 1920s, Strindberg was expected to be ‘brutal and depressing.’

This Erwartungshorizont still prevails, however, in the minds of many involved in both producing and performing Strindberg's plays and in the study of dramatic literature. If we consider present-day Sweden, where Lars Norén's grim and brutal dramas of family conflict are performed frequently before consistently full houses, and not only receive wide critical acclaim for being some of the best dramas written in Sweden today, but are also praised for their rapier-like wit, we might think that Strindberg's little comedies about jealousy in the marital nest would appear, by comparison, to be mere bits of fluff—or in any case, certainly not as ‘brutal and depressing’ as Lamm found them to be. Yet it was not too long ago that Hans-Göran Ekman, in an essay on Leka med elden, presented an interpretation of the play in which he concentrates on its tragic aspects and seriously calls into question the use of ‘comedy’ as a proper genre designation.²² This he does after citing Gunnar Ollén, Sven Rinman, and Gunnar Brandell, who agree that, with Leka med elden, Strindberg had indeed written a play that deserves to be called a comedy, and even after quoting Strindberg, who in a letter written in 1908 called the play ‘komedi, och icke lustspel: och en mycket allvarlig komedi, der menskorna dölja sin tragedi under en viss cynism’ (comedy, and not lustspel: and a very serious comedy, in which the characters hide their tragedy under a certain cynicism—XVI, p. 167). Strindberg's letter shows that he was well aware of the differences between ‘comedy’ and ‘lustspel’, the latter of which is used to designate light comedy, while the former is applied ‘to a more serious type of comedy, inclined to the satirical and the expression of human frailty and impotence.’²³ As the German scholar Otto Rommel explains, in a Komödie (as opposed to a Lustspiel), ‘through all the merriment, one usually senses the sharpness of satirical anger or the bitterness of impotence.’²⁴

Ekman's reading of Leka med elden as more tragic than comic recalls the conflicting interpretations of Molière's satirical comedy Le Misanthrope, for he regards the character of Axel to be the protagonist of the play, seeing him as an Alceste, an honnête homme, a truth-sayer in a corrupt world. Ekman cites a letter written by Strindberg in March 1892 (only about five months before he wrote Leka med elden), in which he shows his sympathy for Molière's suffering Alceste by expressing compassion for an acquaintance, Ivar Fock, whom he apparently regarded as an Alceste figure. Strindberg refers to Fock as ‘den lidande Fock’ (the suffering Fock) and adds, in parentheses, ‘Alceste! min Vän!’ (Alceste! my friend!—IX, p. 16). For further support, Ekman cites Strindberg, writing in 1908, that the play ‘är ämnadt tragisk men får halft komisk utgång!’ (is intended to be tragic, but has a half-comic ending—XVI, p. 172). For Ekman, the play is clearly Axel's tragedy.

Conversely, I regard Axel as a blocking character, whose departure allows re-establishment and reconfirmation of the society, such as it is, depicted in the play. One could also cite at least one letter by Strindberg to support this view. In March 1894, he wrote to his French translator Georges Loiseau, that Leka med elden ‘n'a pas plû (sic) aux philstres parce que la tradition de la parterre exige à voir le mari ridiculisé et que dans cette comédie l'amant tient le dessous’ (did not please the philistines because the tradition of the parterre demands to see the husband ridiculed, and in this comedy it is the lover who is left holding the bag—X, p. 29). According to this letter, Strindberg clearly regards Axel as the butt of his comedy, not his suffering protagonist. It appears that by 1908, when he wrote the letter cited by Ekman, Strindberg might have changed his own perspective on the play.

When reading Gunnar Ollén's accounts of critical responses to performances of both Första varningen and Leka med elden, one becomes acutely aware, especially in the case of the latter play, of the extent to which directors and actors—and critics as well—have, through their interpretations, ‘genre-alized’ the plays by accentuating, in some productions, the cynical and bitter aspects, and, in others, stressing the comedy.²⁵ Occasionally Strindberg himself changed his views on plays he had written, and in at least one case—that of Fordringsägare—he even altered his original genre designation. His ‘genre-alizing’ is illustrated by two letters concerning Fordringsägare that he wrote to the Danish actress Nathalie Larsen early in 1889, when she was both translating the play into Danish and rehearsing the role of Tekla for the première in Copenhagen. In the first letter, dated 9 January 1889, Strindberg informed Larsen that his tragedy Fordringsägare ‘skall nu kallas: Tragikomedi’ (will now be called: Tragicomedy—VII, p. 222 (Strindberg's italics)). This indicates perhaps not only a change in Strindberg's perspective on the play but also an awareness on his part that modern naturalistic drama was showing a tendency to move away from tragedy in the classic sense. In the second letter, dated 26 February 1889, which Strindberg sent to Larsen after having watched a rehearsal of the play, he wrote, ‘Om Ni går åt tragedien (den gamla) eller komedien, vet jag ej. Möjligen gå vi alla—tragedien också—åt komedien och då är Ni med!’ (Whether you are moving towards tragedy (the old) or comedy, I don't know. Perhaps all of us—including tragedy—are moving towards comedy, and then you're right in step!—VII, p. 254).

At this point, I should like to propose a meeting of minds between those who focus on the idea of ‘tragedy hidden under a certain cynicism’ in Leka med elden, and those, including myself, who prefer to regard the play as a comedy even less serious, especially for our time, than its author may have regarded it to be. Perhaps we can resolve our hermeneutic conflict by considering both Leka med elden, as well as its companion piece Första varningen, as comédies rosses, plays belonging to a genre that encompasses both the tragic and the comic and includes many examples which can indeed be called tragicomedies. Considering this possibility might free us from the limited hermeneutic circles we may be caught up in. There is no intent on my part to make any final pronouncement regarding genre on these or any other of Strindberg's plays, for I agree firmly with the American comparatist Herbert Lindenberger, that genre should not be approached ‘as a category for which I seek out timeless rules’, but ‘as a term that opens up opportunities for both formal and historical analysis, that in fact allows the analyst to observe the interactions between the aesthetic order and the social order.’²⁶

First, a brief definition of the genre comédies rosses: this is not a definition that derives from a theory to be imposed upon a given body of dramatic literature; it derives, rather, from the observations of that literature by André Antoine, director of the Théâtre Libre in Paris; by Jean Jullien, playwright and author of the comédie rosse, La Sérénade; and others involved with writing and producing the plays. In a list of plays he considered representative of the comédies rosses, Antoine included Henry Becque's La Navette, which Strindberg mentions favourably in his essay ‘Om modernt drama och modern teater’ (SS 17, p. 301), as well as another of Becque's plays, La Parisienne, with which Strindberg was familiar (X, p. 291). Some of the other plays on Antoine's list are Jullien's Le Maître, La Mer, and the above-mentioned La Sérénade, the latter of which Strindberg had in his library;²⁷ Oscar Méténier's Monsieur Betsy, as well as En Famille, a play that Strindberg had seen and commended highly (SS 17, p. 297); George Ancey's L'École des veufs, L'Avenir, and La Dupe; Edmond de Goncourt's dramatization of Germinie Lacerteux, the novel he wrote with his brother Jules in 1864; Jules Lemaître's L'Age difficile; and Georges Courteline's Boubouroche—all of which were written in the late 1880s and early 1890s.²⁸

Because they are works by various authors, these plays differ considerably, yet most of them have in common a number of characteristics. To begin with, the main characters are usually amoral. Many of them are hypocritical, yet they are blithely unaware of their hypocrisy. A straightforward eroticism pervades many of the plays, and love is treated with sophisticated flippancy and regarded from a cynical viewpoint—rarely is it depicted as caritas. The passions that come to the fore in the comédies rosses are jealousy, which is often a stimulant to love, and anger, usually that of a deceived husband or lover. These passions are frequently expressed in strong, brutal language, with no attempt on the part of the playwright to shy away from le mot juste. Money is very important to the characters in the comédies rosses, and many of them devote their entire lives to pursuing it. Their pursuit leads to unhappy marriages and many an unhappy ménàge à trois. In addition to the pessimistic view of life reflected in the comédies rosses, there is a cynical humour which is usually clothed in witty, flippant dialogue—dialogue which reflects what the French playwright and critic Jules Lemaitre describes as ‘le pessimisme essentiellement jovial.’²⁹ Coupled with the witty dialogue are some comic situations that arise when the wives and mistresses in the plays deceive their husbands and lovers. A fitting, though relatively mild, example of a comic scene in a comédie rosse is the opening scene of Becque's La Parisienne, which takes place between two of the main characters, Lafont and Clotilde. The spectator does not know what their relationship is, but one might assume that they are married, for Lafont acts like a jealous husband who fears that his wife is about to be untrue to him. He shouts at Clotilde. He demands to see a letter that she is hiding from him. He then pleads with her to remain faithful to him and to maintain her dignity and her honour. Clotilde displays a markedly nonchalant attitude toward Lafont's jealous rantings. Finally, in the midst of his pleading, she calmly cuts him short, goes to the door, listens, and says, ‘Prenez garde, voilà mon mari’ (Look out, here comes my husband).³⁰

Let us turn now to Strindberg's two cynical comedies Första varningen and Leka med elden. In the first and shorter of the two plays, Första varningen, Strindberg presents as his main characters a jealous husband and a wife who displays a flippant attitude toward her husband's jealousy. The primary motif of the play is related not so much to any of the comédies rosses as it is to an earlier French comedy, Octave Feuillet's one-act play Le Cheveu blanc (1856). In Feuillet's play, a wife has been looking forward to the day when her estranged husband will begin to show signs of ageing, for she hopes that he will no longer attract other women, and that she will then have him for herself. She is delighted when she sees the first white hair on his head, exclaiming, ‘That poor white hair! I have waited for it as for a friend; it seems to me that it marks a happy day in my life.’³¹ The single strand of grey hair does in fact bring about a happy reconciliation.

In Strindberg's play, it is the husband who has waited impatiently for his wife to grow older. He tells her:

Hur ofta har jag icke önskat att du redan vore gammal och ful, att du hade fått kopporna, förlorat tänderna, bara för att jag skulle få behålla dig för mig själv och se ett slut på denna oro, som aldrig överger mig!

(How often haven't I wished that you were already old and ugly, that you had become pock-marked and lost your teeth—just so that I could have you for myself and see an end to this anxiety that never leaves me!)

—SV 33, p. 123

The lines above from Le Cheveu blanc and Första varningen show that Strindberg's language is decidedly coarse when compared with that of Feuillet's little salon comedy. It is much more in line with the naturalistic, often crude dialogue of the rosses playwrights. The ending, too, of Första varningen indicates that the play is more closely related to the comédies rosses than it is to the more traditional nineteenth-century comedy with which it shares thematic similarities. At the end, the wife breaks a front tooth and, realizing that she is beginning to lose her beauty, fears that she might lose her husband as well. Although the broken tooth, like the white hair in Le Cheveu blanc, brings about the reconciliation of husband and wife, Strindberg's conciliatory ending is considerably less optimistic than Feuillet's, as the final exchange of words between the husband and wife suggests. When the wife asks, ‘Och är du lugn nu?’ (And are you content now?), the husband replies, ‘Ja—i åtta dagar!’ (Yes—for eight days!—p. 146). His answer indicates that after a short time, the bickering, the fighting, and the jealousy can flare up again.

The relationship between the husband and wife in Första varningen—characterized by the husband's unrestrained jealousy and the wife's unruffled attitude toward his jealousy—is typical of the relationships between men and their wives and/or mistresses in the comédies rosses. The example of Lafont and Clotilde in Becque's La Parisienne, cited above, is but one of many that could be mentioned. It should also be pointed out that, as in many comédies rosses, jealousy in Första varningen—first on the part of the husband, and at the end of the play on the part of the wife—acts as a stimulant to love, or as the glue that holds the love relationship together. As the wife points out to her husband, ‘… det har visat sig att din kärlek blir ganska kylslagen, så snart du icke har anledning att vara svartsjuk’ (it is evident that your love becomes rather lukewarm, as soon as you have no reason to be jealous—p. 123).

Also in keeping with the nature of the comédies rosses, Första varningen displays a straightforward eroticism apparently unheard of in the Swedish theatre of Strindberg's day. Strindberg includes among his characters a fifteen year old girl, Rosa, who in her infatuation for the husband rips open the sleeve of her dress and then kisses him passionately. Her rash actions are accompanied by some decidedly spicy dialogue. She invites the husband to come up to the attic to read old love letters written to various women by her father, whom she describes as a man ‘som kunde älska, och som vågade älska! Han darrade inte för en kyss och väntade inte tills han blev bjuden!’ (who could make love and who dared to make love! He wasn't afraid of a kiss and didn't wait until he was invited!—p. 139) That Strindberg, like the rosses playwrights, did not shy away from le mot naturel is further illustrated by Rosa's lines:

Hahaha! Ni är rädd att jag skall förleda er, och ni ser förvånad ut. Förvånad över att jag, en flicka, som varit kvinna i tre år, har reda på att kärleken icke är oskyldig! Inbillar ni er att jag tror det barn föddas genom örat,——Nu föraktar ni mig, det ser jag, men det skall ni inte göra, för jag är icke sämre, och icke bättre heller än de andra … så är jag!

(Hahaha! You're afraid I'll seduce you, and you look surprised that I, a girl who has been a woman for three years, is aware that love is not innocent! Do you think I believe that children are born through the ears——You despise me, I see that, but you shouldn't, because I'm no worse, nor am I any better, than the others … it's just the way I am!)

—p. 140

It is generally assumed, as Carl Reinhold Smedmark points out, that it was the frankness in sexual matters expressed in Rosa's lines that prompted the actors of the Royal Dramatic Theatre to refuse to perform the play in 1892 because they regarded it as immoral,³² even after Strindberg had deleted what he thought were ‘uttryck som kunde anses opassande’ (expressions that could be regarded as unsuitable—IX, p. 29).

Rosa's lines, however, are not typical of the dialogue in Första varningen. More characteristic is the polished, quick repartee between the wife and the husband, Olga and Axel, especially in the opening scene, with most of the witty lines spoken by the flippant Olga. Secure in the knowledge that Axel loves her, she can allow herself to treat his jealousy lightly, as she does in the following exchange that takes place when Axel, in the midst of some lightly sarcastic conjugal bickering, begins to finger a bouquet of flowers that an admirer, a captain, has sent to her:

FRUN:
Låt bli och förstör mina blommor!
HERRN:
Har det varit kaptenens förut?
FRUN:
Ja, och sannolikt trädgårdsmästarns, innan det blev blomsterhandlarns. Men nu är det mina!
OLGA:
Stop destroying my flowers!
AXEL:
Weren't they the captain's before?
OLGA:
Yes, and probably the gardener's before they became the florist's. But now they're mine!)

—pp. 121-2

Axel continues to complain about the attention that the captain was paying to Olga at a party they attended on the previous evening. Finally, venting his anger by flinging the bouquet aside, he exclaims, ‘Det är ett vackert bruk här i orten att sända blommor till andras fruar’! (It's a pretty custom they have here—sending flowers to other men's wives!—p. 122) His actions, however, scarcely make an impression on Olga, who remains completely unruffled and even assumes a haughty tone, as the following exchange illustrates:

FRUN:
Herrn skulle gått hem och lagt sig litet tidigare, tror jag.
HERRN:
Jag är fullständigt övertygad om att kaptenen önskat etsamma. Men som jag bara hade att välja på att stanna och vara löjlig, eller gå hem ensam och vara löjlig, så stannade jag …
FRUN:
Och var komisk!
OLGA:
The gentleman should have gone home and gone to bed a bit earlier, I think.
AXEL:
I am absolutely convinced that the captain wished the same. But since I had only the choice of staying and being ridiculous and going home alone and being ridiculous, I stayed …
OLGA:
And were comical!)

—p. 122

Olga's rejoinders are at times cutting. Consider the following exchange:

AXEL:
Kan du förklara huru du vill vara en komisk herres fru? Jag skulle inte vilja vara man åt en löjlig hustru!
OLGA:
Det är synd om dig!
AXEL:
Tycker du inte det! Jag tycker det själv rätt ofta. Men vet du var det tragiska i min löjlighet ligger?
OLGA:
Svara själv, så blir det kvickare än om jag gör det!
AXEL:
Därute … att jag är förälskad i min hustru efter femton års äktenskap …
OLGA:
Femton år! Går du med stegräknare på dig?
(AXEL:
Can you explain why you'd want to be the wife of a comical man? I shouldn't want to be married to a ridiculous wife!
OLGA:
You are pitiable!
AXEL:
Don't you think so! I think so too—very often. But do you know where the tragical in my ludicrousness lies?
OLGA:
Answer that yourself—it will be wittier than if I do!
AXEL:
It lies in … my being in love with my wife after fifteen years of marriage …
OLGA:
Fifteen years! Do you go around with a pedometer?)

—pp. 122-3

Olga's witty incisiveness loses a good deal of its sting towards the end of the play, however, when she breaks her front tooth. Realizing that she is beginning to lose her youthful beauty, she becomes aware that she is no longer in a position where she can afford to be so flippant, and, consequently, is no longer as witty as she is earlier in the play. Also, since Axel's jealousy has subsided, he ceases to act like the ridiculous figure of a ranting, jealous husband, thereby depriving Olga of an appropriate target for her barbed wit. Still, Axel's final words to Olga, that he will be content for eight days, show promise that he will, after that short period, return to his jealous ways, and that the banter between the two will begin anew.

In Leka med elden—a somewhat longer and more complex play than Första varningen—both jealousy and a desire for forbidden fruit act as catalysts which set off erotic reactions on the part of several of the characters. These characters, who are listed simply as ‘Fadern, Modern, Sonen, Sonhustrun, Vännen, and Kusinen’ (The Father, The Mother, The Son, The Daughter-in-Law, The Friend, and The Cousin—p. 215), are spending the summer on one of the islands in the Stockholm archipelago. In their summer paradise, they are bored to distraction, and one can perceive an erotic undercurrent ready to surface at any time. In this dull but charged atmosphere the characters begin to play with fire—that is, to play the game of love.

Precisely because it is a game, love is treated lightly, often with a scepticism characteristic of the comédies rosses. The friend, Axel, for example, just after declaring to Kerstin, the son's wife, ‘Jag älskar dig, med kropp och själ’ (I love you with body and soul—p. 265), answers her impassioned question, ‘Ska vi fly?’ (Shall we escape?) with the incisive, yet comic, remark, ‘Nej! Men jag skall fly!’ (No, but I shall escape!—p. 266) Finally, when Axel and Kerstin confess to Knut, the son, that they love each other, Knut appears to gain control of himself rather quickly after being, according to stage directions, ‘något förkrossad’ (somewhat crushed—p. 267) and lamenting, ‘vi sökte genom en konstlad öppenhet förebygga faran, skämtade med den, men den har dragit närmare, och slagit ner över oss!’ (we tried to prevent the danger by being open about it—artificially. We even joked about it, but it's drawn closer, and now it's come crashing down on us!—p. 268). He even appears to display a relatively jovial cynicism in the face of the problem. After asking Axel and Kerstin to help him, and themselves, come to a satisfactory solution, he says to Axel, ‘Hör du min vän! Vi måste komma till ett hastigt avgörande, för det ringer till frukost om några minuter’ (Listen, my friend! We have to come to a quick decision about this matter because the lunch bell is going to ring in a few minutes—p. 269). In a matter of seconds, Knut decides to solve the problem by agreeing to withdraw from the love triangle, but he states as a condition that Axel must marry his wife. It is not long before Axel is seen escaping through the garden ‘som om han haft eld i bakfickorna’ (as if his pants were on fire—p. 272), and the son and his wife are reconciled.

From the beginning of the play up until the scene à faire described briefly above, one can observe the motif of jealousy acting as a catalyst to love. Axel and Kerstin have been drawn to each other for some time, but it is not until Kerstin observes Axel talking to Knut's cousin Adèle that her feelings for Axel are aroused. Kerstin acknowledges the connection between her love and her jealousy when she answers Axel's question whether she has never felt as if she could love him by replying, ‘Jo, när ni talar med Adèle!’ (Yes, I have—when you are talking to Adèle!—p. 248). Axel observes that, whenever Knut sees him and Kerstin together, Knut's feelings for Kerstin also seem to flare up. He comments: ‘Fröken Adèle och jag tyckas med ett ord ha till uppgift att vara braständare’ (In a word, Adèle and I seem to have the same function: we light the fire—p. 249).

Another aspect that Leka med elden has in common with both the comédies rosses and, more generally, with the French comedy of manners, is an interest in money on the part of the main characters. Typical of many French comedies is an intrigue that revolves around marrying for money or inheriting money. Such an intrigue is unusual in Strindberg's plays. Although it is not central to Leka med elden, it is, nevertheless, present. Early in the play Knut and Kerstin discuss the possibility of arranging a marriage between Adèle and Axel, because they fear that Knut's father, who apparently is infatuated with Adèle, will leave his money to her and not to them. Their conversation takes on a distinct comédie rosse flavour when Kerstin asks, ‘Har du tänkt dig den möjligheten att din mor skulle kunna dö?’ (Have you thought about the possibility that your mother might die?), and Knut answers flippantly, ‘Nå, än sedan?’ (Well, so what?). Kerstin explains, ‘Sedan kan din far gifta om sig!’ (Then your father can remarry!—p. 228). Knut catches on and replies, ‘Med Adèle? … Det måtte man väl kunna hindra för resten … Det vill säga att hon skulle bli styvmor och hennes barn dela arvet!’ (To Adèle? … Well, we'll have to stop that, won't we … That means that she would become my stepmother, and her children would share the inheritance—p. 229). Characters in several of the comédies rosses display an attitude similar to Knut's. One thinks, for example, of Henri, the son in Ancey's L'École des veufs, who is cruelly indifferent towards his mother's death but exhibits a strong interest in inheriting his father's money.

Coupled with the cynical and somewhat decadent atmosphere of Leka med elden is some of Strindberg's lightest, most playful comic dialogue. In the discussion about where Axel will be staying on his visit to the island, for example, Knut tells Axel rather jovially:

Du stannar bara här, helt enkelt! Låt dem prata! Bor du här, så är du naturligtvis min hustrus älskare; och bor du i byn, så har jag kört ut dig! Då tycker jag det är mer hedrande för dig att anses vara min hustrus älskare, eller hur?

(You'll simply stay here! That's all there is to it! Let them talk! If you live here, of course, you're my wife's lover. And if you live in the village, then I've driven you out! I think it's more honourable for you to be regarded as my wife's lover, don't you?)

—p. 236

The flippancy of these lines resembles that of comédies rosses dialogue. Also similar to such dialogue is the bantering that frequently has erotic or risqué overtones, as in the exchange between Knut and his mother early on in the play, when the mother returns from market with some ducklings in her shopping basket. When Knut, rummaging in the basket, finds the ducklings, and the mother complains, ‘De kunde ha varit lite fetare … känn här under bröstet,’ Knut answers, ‘Jag tycker brösten äro vackra jag!’ (They could have been a little plumper … feel here under the breast.—Oh, I do think breasts are beautiful—p. 220). A few lines after he makes the pun on the word ‘bröst’, Knut answers his mother's question whether he and Kerstin slept well last night with the playful reply, ‘Vi ha inte sovit alls!’ (We didn't sleep at all!—p. 221).

While many similarities can be found between Strindberg's Första varningen and Leka med elden and the French comédies rosses, there are also striking dissimilarities. Unlike the characters portrayed in the comédies rosses, for example, the wives and husbands in Strindberg's plays do not deceive each other, nor do they lie to one another. Strindberg includes no secret meetings with lovers, as does Becque in La Parisienne and La Navette, or Ancey in L'Avenir, to name but a few examples, nor are there in Strindberg's plays lovers hidden in closets, as in Courteline's cynical comedy Boubouroche. Strindberg presents in neither of his comedies a ménàge à trois, as in Jullien's La Sérénade, Ancey's L'École des veufs, and Becque's La Parisienne. In Första varningen, although there are two women who attempt to win the affection of the husband, it is clear that he is interested only in his wife. Nor does Strindberg give any hint that the wife's flirtations have extended beyond accepting flowers from admirers, and so an arrangement à trois does not enter into the equation. In Leka med elden, there is one point at which Knut almost gives the impression that a ménàge à trois might be a possible arrangement. Referring to Axel, he tells Kerstin:

… Denna man håller jag så mycket av, att jag icke skulle kunna neka honom någonting! Ingenting! … det är galet, brottsligt, lågt, men om han bad att få sova hos dig skulle han få! … vet du, jag förföljs ibland av en syn … jag tycker mig se er tillsammans; och jag lider inte av det, jag snarare njuter, såsom vid åsynen av något mycket skönt! … det är kanske ett ovanligt fall, men erkänn att der är djävligt intressant!

(I am so fond of that man that I shouldn't be able to deny him anything! Nothing! … it's crazy, criminal, base, but if he asked to go to bed with you, I'd let him! … you know, sometimes I'm pursued by a vision … I imagine that I see the two of you together. And I'm not pained by it. I rather enjoy it, as if I were seeing something very beautiful! … it's perhaps an unusual case, but you must admit it's damned interesting!)

—p. 255

The impression, however, is false, for, as Knut explains later:

Att för mig fortsätta samliv med en kvinna, som älskar en annan, kan icke bli något helt, då jag alltid skall tycka mig leva i polyandri. Därför—avgår jag, men icke förr än jag har garantier för att du gifter dig med henne.

(For me to continue to live intimately with a woman who loves another can never amount to anything complete, since I would always regard myself a living in polyandry. And so—I'm withdrawing, but not until I have your word that you'll marry her)

—p. 269

Because of such basic differences in the relationships between the husbands and wives of Strindberg's comedies and those of the comédies rosses, Strindberg's characters are not hypocritical, as are so many of those portrayed in the French comedies. His plays, therefore, do not depict the kind of society represented in the comédies rosses, a society described by the French writer and critic Augustin Filon as one which has the decalogue as its code, but is governed by the seven deadly sins;³³ consequently, Strindberg's plays lack, for the most part, the ironic comedy that arises from the discrepancy between the opinions that the characters have of themselves and the picture that they present to the public. It is precisely in this discrepancy that the French author and literary critic Jules Lemaître believes that the essence of the comic in the comédies rosses lies.³⁴

The main characteristics, then, that Första varningen and Leka med elden share with the comédies rosses are the theme of jealousy as a stimulant to love, a straightforward eroticism, and an essentially jovial pessimism. Strindberg's plays, like the comédies rosses, exhibit a decidedly sceptical attitude toward love and marriage, which—as is well known—many had regarded for some time before he wrote Första varningen and Leka med elden as a quintessentially Strindbergian attitude. Although the married couples are reconciled at the end of each play, in Första varningen the truce can only last ‘i åtta dagar’ (a week), and in Leka med elden there is no assurance that Knut and Kerstin will be happy; on the contrary, they have already hinted strongly that happiness is impossible for them in a typically Strindbergian exchange, in which they shout at each other, ‘Du har aldrig älskat mig!’ (You have never loved me!), and Knut declares, ‘Ja, nu ha vi kommit in i det grälet som räcker till döddagar!’ (Well, now we've begun the kind of fighting that will last until we die!—p. 258).

It should be remembered, however, that no matter how much unhappiness enters into the marriages depicted in Strindberg's two dramas, his plays end with the husbands and wives—who do love each other after a fashion—reunited, their marriages intact. Neither play ends with a ménàge à trois, a lover or mistress, or thoughts of infidelity. Nor are the characters hypocritical. In a sense, Strindberg's endings are essentially happier—or at least a little more optimistic—than those of the comédies rosses. It is noteworthy that even in the comedies that he himself labelled ‘ur det cyniska livet’, Strindberg, whose reputation for brutality and cynicism is widespread, does not match the cynicism expressed by his Gallic contemporaries in their comédies rosses.

This, then, is my perspective on two of Strindberg's comedies, Första varningen and Leka med elden—the result of my ‘genrealizing.’ One of my stated purposes, to bring to light the comic aspects of Strindberg's comédies rosses, is partly in response to a largely unheeded plea that Eric Bentley made as long ago as 1946 that Strindberg's comedies ‘need to be recovered from the blanket of ignorance and solemnity that hides their author and his work from view.’³⁵ Not only do Strindberg's comedies need to be recovered, but the comic aspects of his works, so long neglected, need to be brought forth. This is not a task to be appropriated exclusively by academics who gather at symposia to theorize over genre and other aspects of Strindberg's works. We need to cross boundaries, to go beyond the perimeters not only of the academy, but of the written text, to move beyond the word on the page to the word as performed, with all its nuances and accompanying non-verbal, visual aspects of interpretation and performance. The task must be shared by theatre workers, and also by audiences and critics.

In the last decade or so, there have been productions of some of Strindberg's plays that give strong evidence that efforts are being made to recover—perhaps ‘uncover’, or even ‘discover’, would be more appropriate—the comic side of Strindberg. Among these are the Fria Proteatern's production in Stockholm in 1984 and 1985 of Fordringsägare, directed by Stefan Böhm, with Keve Hjelm, Bibi Andersson, and Tomas Bolme, a production that did not ignore the comic aspects of Strindberg's tragicomedy; the Roundabout Theater's Playing with Fire; and Eivor and Derek Martinus's London productions of Första varningen, Moderskärlek, and other plays. At the Source Foundation in New York, Susan Flakes has directed performances of Strindberg's plays that gave their comic aspects the recognition they deserve. Included in her productions have been Playing with Fire and The Dance of Death, in translations by Flakes in collaboration with Barry Jacobs. The American actress Geraldine Page, who played in the Source Foundation's The Dance of Death, described the play as one with ‘many laughs’, and suggested that ‘it would be good for people to know that and to get the doom and gloom lifted from the play.’³⁶ (Compare this with John Ward's criticism of the London National Theatre production of The Dance of Death in 1969, in which Ward accuses the actors of ‘attempting to milk a dour text for laughs, with the result that what should have been demonic inconsistencies appeared as absentminded absurdities’).³⁷

If these productions are any indication of what might be brewing in the world of Strindbergian theatre, then I think we can expect that Strindberg's wonderfully incisive, cynical, comic spirit—which has been stifled for so many years—will be free at last to add another dimension, a comic dimension, to what many have come to agree is a disturbingly one-sided critical image of Strindberg. Strindberg was, after all, an observer and recorder of life, and those who approach his works must bear in mind that there is in almost all of them, as in life itself, an intermingling of the tragic and the comic, or, to use Strindberg's own words, ‘tragiskt och komiskt, stort och smått omväxla såsom i livet’ (the tragic and the comic, the great and the small, alternate, as they do in life—SS 19, p. 27).

Notes

1. Paul Hernadi, ‘Why We Can't Help Genre-alizing and How Not to Go About It: Two Theses with Commentary’, Centrum, 6:1 (1978), pp. 27-8.

2. Extemporaneous comment made at the Tenth International Strindberg Conference on 2 April 1990.

3. Hernadi, ‘Why We Can't Help Genre-alizing’, p. 27.

4. Paul Hernadi, Beyond Genre: New Directions in Literary Classification (Ithaca and London, 1972), p. 3.

5. Ferdinand Brunetière, Études critiques, Vol. 8, pp. 116-117. Cited in P.J. Yarrow, ed., A Literary History of France, Vol. II, The Seventeenth Century 1600-1715 (London, 1967), p. 215.

6. Hernadi, Beyond Genre, pp. 3-4.

7. Cf. Alfred Simon, ‘From Alceste to Scapin’, Molière: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Jacques Guicharnaud (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), p. 145.

8. Barbara Lide, heard after performance of the play, 27 December 1981.

9. Letters to Karl Otto Bonnier, 21 August 1888 (VII, p. 105), and Joseph Seligmann, 16 October 1888 (VII, p. 144).

10. I have used Børge Gedsø Madsen's translation, ‘the fully executed one-act play.’ Børge Gedsø Madsen, Strindberg's Naturalistic Theatre: Its Relation to French Naturalism (Seattle, 1962), p. 129.

11. Maurice Valency, The Flower and the Castle (New York, 1966), p. 282.

12. Birgitta Steene, The Greatest Fire: A Study of August Strindberg (Carbondale, 1973), p. 64.

13. Atos Wirtanen, August Strindberg: Liv och dikt (Stockholm, 1962).

14. August Strindberg, Plays from the Cynical Life, translated by Walter Johnson (Seattle and London, 1983), pp. 3-6.

15. Walter Johnson, August Strindberg (Boston, 1976), pp. 150-51.

16. Egil Törnqvist, ‘Första varningen/The First Warning—an Effective Drama’, Strindbergian Drama: Themes and Structures (Stockholm, 1982), pp. 37 and 19.

17. Gedsø Madsen, pp. 28-29 and pp. 128-137.

18. Martin Lamm, Strindbergs dramer, I (Stockholm, 1924), p. 393.

19. Lamm, p. 402.

20. Review in Die Zeit, 2 February 1910, of Josef Jarno's production at the Theater in der Josefstadt.

21. Quoted by Gunnar Ollén in his 1961 edition of Strindbergs dramatik (Stockholm, 1961), p. 29.

22. Hans-Göran Ekman, ‘Sanningssägaren som komediförfattare: En Studie i Strindbergs komedi Leka med elden’, Samlaren (1979), pp. 75-104.

23. Kenneth S. Whitton, The Theatre of Friedrich Dürrenmatt: A Study in the Possibility of Freedom (London, 1980), p. 20.

24. Otto Rommel, ‘Komik- und Lustspieltheorie’, Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift, XXI: 2 (1943), pp. 252-286, here p. 273. (Cited in Whitton, p. 21.)

25. Gunnar Ollén, Strindbergs dramatik, 4th ed. (Stockholm, 1982), pp. 204-209 and 218-227. See also Ollén's commentary in SV 33, p. 358-368.

26. Herbert Lindenberger, Opera: The Extravagant Art (Ithaca and London, 1984), p. 20.

27. Förteckning öfver en Samling Böcker, hvilka försäljes på Stockholms Bokauktionskammare Onsdagen den 30 November 1892 (Stockholm, 1892), p. 24.

28. Antoine prepared his list for Heinrich Weber, who quotes it in his study, ‘Die “comédie rosse” in Frankreich’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, Jahrgang 54, 105 (N.S.V.), 1900, p. 345.

29. Jules Lemaître, Impressions de Théâtre, Troisième Série (Paris, 1889), p. 224.

30. Henry Becque, Oeuvres complètes (Paris, 1924), Vol. 3, pp. 3-9.

31. Octave Feuillet, Théâtre complet (Paris, 1897), Vol. 2, p. 24.

32. Carl Reinhold Smedmark, ed., August Strindbergs dramer, Vol. 4, p. 240.

33. Augustin Filon, De Dumas à Rostand. Esquisse du Mouvement dramatique contemporain (Paris, 1898), p. 70. See also Gedsø Madsen, p. 28.

34. Lemaître, p. 224.

35. Eric Bentley, The Playwright as Thinker: A Study of Drama in Modern Times (New York, 1945), p. 163.

36. Cited in The New York Times, 28 April 1986.

37. John Ward, ‘The Neglected Dramas of August Strindberg’, Drama: The Quarterly Theatre Review, No. 92 (1969), p. 32.