Contents
Preface
V
Reception Texts Opening Subjectivism Reliability Time Imagery Genre
3 21 37 53 67 87 103 115
Cited Works Play Index
127 131
Preface
There are several reasons why August Strindberg (1849-1912) is generally considered one of the leading dramatists around 1900. The most significant is undoubtedly his power to create meaningful and arresting plays, that is, plays marked by an infallible feeling for what is specific to the dramatic genre. With his around sixty plays, Strindberg today counts as one of the great innovators of modern drama. The aim of this book is to throw some light, be it fragmentary, on Strindberg as a dramatic craftsman. And to suggest that it is not least in this underexposed area that his mastership shows. While many of Strindberg’s plays are examined from this point of view, special attention is paid to some of the best known dramas, easily accessible in English translation. However, since the dramaturgic problems confronting Strindberg are to a great extent problems facing any (modern) playwright, the book addresses itself also to those interested in dramaturgy generally. A pervading idea is the distinction between the page and the stage, the reader’s text and the spectator’s performance. We need not only recognize that drama by necessity is a hybrid genre; we need also, more than has hitherto been done, to examine the consequences of this fact. For quotes from Strindberg’s plays I owe much to existing versions in English, although I have sometimes felt free to use V
my own rendering when this seemed called for. In the interest of reader-friendliness, I have abstained from page references to the plays. A few technical hints may be useful. ‘Recipient’ is used as an umbrella term for reader and spectator. In my text the recipient is consistently referred to as ‘he’; for this read ‘he and/or she.’ Three dots within quotations indicate either a pause or interrupted speech. Omissions within quotations are indicated by a hyphen within square brackets: [-]. SV stands for August Strindbergs Samlade Verk (August Strindberg’s Collected Works); the figures following the abbreviation indicate volume and page(s). S stands for Strindberg’s works, as listed under “Source and target texts” in “Cited works.” In the Play Index the English titles, in alphabethical order, are followed by the original Swedish titles. A substantial part of this book has appeared earlier. Chapter One is partly based on “Strindberg on Page and Stage: Miss Julie as Paradigmatic Example” in Kirsten Wechsel, ed., Strindberg and His Media, Leipzig/Berlin 2003. Chapter Two owes something to “Strindberg’s Secondary Text” in Modern Drama, 23: 4, 1990. Chapter Three is based on “Sättet att börja stycken – om Strindbergs pjäsöppningar,” Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek, 30: 1, 2009. Chapter Four relies on “Strindberg and Subjective Drama” in Michael Robinson’s edition Strindberg and Genre, Norwich 1991. Chapter Five appeared in Scandinavica, 38: 1, 1999, as “Unreliable Narration in Strindbergian Drama.” Chapter Six was published as “‘Tid och rum existera icke’: Tidsproblematiken i Strindbergs Ett drömspel,” in Agora: Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon, 3, 1996. Part of Chapter Seven appeared as “Translating Strindbergian Imagery for the Stage” in Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek, 19: 1, 1998. Chapter Eight, finally, is largely based on “The Strindbergian OneActer,” Scandinavian Studies, 68: 3, 1996. All articles have here been thoroughly revised. VI
Those who wish to know more about the literature on Strindberg’s plays may turn to vol. 2 of An International Annotated Bibliography of Strindberg Studies 1870-2005, 1-3, 2008, edited by Michael Robinson. I am most grateful to prof. Franco Perrelli for his willingness to include this volume in the series Biblioteca dello Spettacolo Nordico. E. T.
VII
Reception
A published drama text has two kinds of recipients: readers and, via production, spectators. (I disregard a third kind of recipient: the listener to a radio version.) The readers experience the drama text directly, in the form of graphic signs. The spectators do it indirectly, the performance serving as intermediary, in the form of audiovisual signs. This means that a drama text has a double status. This is, in a sense, true also at the stage of conception. Even if the dramatist’s goal is performance, he is a reader of his own play when writing it, a reader who may not always be fully aware of to what extent his graphic signs are convertible into audiovisual ones. Both Bernard Shaw’s and Eugene O’Neill’s plays provide examples of stage and acting directions1 which cannot be audiovisually recreated. A production team can at most experience these directions as implicitly inspiring. Yet many theatre workers have found them blocking their own imagination. To them these directions have been disturbing intrusions into the area that legitimately belongs to them, notably to the director and the actors. The purpose of this chapter is to illuminate the principal and decisive difference between the drama text as text for a reader Critics usually speak only of stage directions as a category covering both kinds but a distinction between the two seems sensible. 1
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and as substratum for a performance witnessed by a spectator. A cursory look at the literature on drama shows that the distinction between these two kinds of recipients has often been neglected. In his pioneering two-volume work on Strindberg’s plays Martin Lamm, for example, speaks alternately about the reader and the spectator – as if their situation were exchangable. Obviously, there are fundamental differences between the two kinds. Whereas the reader can turn back to an earlier passage in the drama text, can reread passages, and can look up difficult words in dictionaries and encyclopedias, the spectator, subjected to the audiovisual flow, has no such possibilities. And whereas the reader normally experiences the drama text in isolation, the spectator is part of a collective – the theatre audience – that will to some extent influence both him and the performers. Clearly, terms like ‘audience response’ and ‘feedback’ apply most naturally to spectators witnessing a performance. In order to make the comparison between the two ‘texts’ valid, it is assumed that the performance text is as close as possible to the drama text.2 Both drama text and performance text may be experienced by a first-time recipient lacking pre-information about the drama text in books/articles and, as far as the spectator is concerned, in theatre programs and theatre reviews. But they may also be experienced by someone who has already read the play, seen a production of it or read about either, and who consequently finds himself in a very different position from the first-time recipient – who will hereafter be called just the ‘recipient.’ His more knowledgeable counterpart who is in some way or another familiar with the play in question before reading or seeing it will be called the rerecipient. Related 2 The performance text – the virtual species – must not be confused with the individual, factual performance. For a comparison between the drama text and a real performance based on this text, see Törnqvist 2000.
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to this distinction is that between the spectator with and without a theatre program; I shall return to this later. We must further distinguish between those who recipiate the original or source text and those who recipiate a translation or a target text. The reader of this book belongs in all likelihood to the latter category with all the problems involved.3 Our experience of the world takes place via our five senses. The drama text can indirectly communicate all these sensory experiences via the stage and acting directions as well as via the dialogue. We are told what the characters look like and what they say. We do not see and hear it for ourselves – other than in our minds. The performance text, by contrast, can communicate sensory experiences directly. We see and hear the characters on the stage. In another sense, however, the drama text can normally communicate all five senses – visual, aural, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile – directly to the reader, via the stage and acting directions, whereas the performance text can normally do this only indirectly, via the dialogue. To let spectators experience taste, smell, and tactility for themselves belongs to the exceptions that prove the rule. The semiotic signals that are communicated to the recipient can be categorized as follows: 1. play area (relation stage-auditorium); 2. scenery; 3. properties; 4. light; 5. sound; 6. music; 7. physical constitution; 9. gestures; 10. proxemics (stage positions);
For translation, transformation and reception problems with regard to drama, see Törnqvist 1991. 3
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11. make-up; 12. costume; 13. paralinguistics (tone, pitch, loudness etc. of voice); 14. dialogue. What strikes one in this list4 is that the dialogue, which to the reader constitutes the main part of a play, forms only one of the fourteen categories experienced by the spectator. In addition to the information provided for the reader in the form of stage and acting directions, the spectator is confronted with a host of audiovisual counterparts of these directions, most of which are unmarked in the drama text. A comparative empirical study of the two situations of reception would undoubtedly show that whereas both kinds of recipients after a reading/viewing would mainly remember matters relating to plot and theme, the spectator, as this somewhat inadequate but well-established term implies,5 in addition to this would recall what the scenery and characters looked like, for the simple reason that he has really seen these while the reader has only ‘seen’ them in his mind, if at all. Of the fourteen categories some (1, 7) are more or less permanent or durative. The rest are either semi-durative or, mostly, momentary. Let us now see to what extent these semiotic categories, found in one particular drama text, Miss Julie, relate to reader and spectator. As especially Manfred Pfister has extensively demonstrated, drama is per definition a two-way communication. The dialogue is addressed not only to someone on the stage (internal communication system) but also to the spectator in the auditorium (external communication system). In a naturalistic play
4 For similar semiotic categorizations, see Kowzan (73), Fischer-Lichte (15) and Esslin (103ff.). 5 Splistener = spectator + listener would have been a more satisfying term, but such a neologism stands little chance of being generally accepted.
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like Miss Julie this presents a considerable problem to the dramatist. How can he provide the audience with the necessary background information and at the same time make this information seem plausible within the internal system. Consider the following example: JEAN. [-] And how she [JULIE] waltzed! – I’ve never known the like. She’s crazy! KRISTIN. She always has been, but nothing like these last two weeks, since her engagement ended.
This is clearly a case of exposition for the recipient. It is for our benefit we are told (1) that Julie’s engagement ended two weeks ago and (2) that since then she is especially “crazy.” We have no trouble combining one fact with the other. Turning to the internal system, we must assume that both Jean and Kristin, considering the time lapse (two weeks), are well aware of both circumstances. Within this system Strindberg is being somewhat tautological. He could have disguised his need of exposition and made the exchange both more natural and more lively by dividing Kristin’s speech up between her and Jean: KRISTIN. She always has been, but nothing like these last two weeks... JEAN. ...since her engagement ended.
The point I wish to make is that while the scrupulous reader may come up with such an alternative solution, the spectator, subjected to the dynamic flow of the dialogue, has no chance to do so. In fact, he would not be disturbed at all by Strindberg’s slight inadvertence. Much more disturbing is Julie’s long narration midway the play about her own childhood, not because it is lacking in verisimilitude – the class barrier explains why this information is new to Jean – but because it is what Peter Szondi would call an epic element that retards the action and therefore is a threat to what is truly dramatic. 7
In the Preface Strindberg mentions no less than thirteen different causes for Julie’s “tragic fate.” Neither the reader nor the spectator will be able to discover all these causes (Lamm 1924: 318). Aware of this, Strindberg suggests in the Preface that “the spectator usually selects the one [motif] that he most easily understands or that best flatters his power of judgement” (S 2007: 64). Each to his taste, in other words. The question is, however, whether this embarras de richesse is the way to create functional drama. Turning to the listed semiotic categories, we may note that only with regard to two items (1, 7) do we lack explicit information in the drama text proper. Yet in the former case the fact that the rear wall of the kitchen is “slanted inwards” indicates that the spectators in the first rows are, as it were, sitting in the kitchen – a way of increasing the audience’s involvement in the action, especially since it is made clear in the Preface that the author has “a small stage and a small auditorium” (S 2007: 72) in mind. Only with regard to physical constitution (7) do we lack information in either text – although by combining them we may assume that Julie is aristocratically slender and Jean forcefully well-built. We may also conclude that Jean looks attractive to Julie and therefore should do so also to us. As readers we can easily imagine an attractive Jean. But taste varies and a Jean on the stage may not appear attractive to all spectators. In the Preface Strindberg pleads for “no make-up, or at least a bare minimum” in “a modern psychological drama, where the subtlest movements of the soul should be mirrored more in the face than in gestures and romping” (S 2007: 72). But neither in the Preface nor in the drama text does he tell us whether the three characters are dark or blond, tall or short. The reader might have welcomed such information but well aware of the casting problems such specifications might have lead to Strindberg avoiding it. The reader is immediately informed about time and space. We are in “the Count’s kitchen, on Midsummer Night.” The spectator is provided with this information less explicitly than 8
the reader and at a later stage. Similarly, in the list of characters the reader immediately and directly learns the names of the three characters, whereas the spectator receives this information somewhat later and via the dialogue. Unlike the spectator, the reader also learns about the exact age of the characters. This is important since it psychologically indicates Jean’s position between the two women – provided we are sensitive to the gender situation around 1890; familiarity with this situation also helps us understand the precarious situation for a woman of twenty-five, Julie’s age, whose engagement has just been broken. Even a speaker-label like the source text’s FRÖKEN (MISS), nonexistent for the spectator, has a characterizing function. For the scenery Strindberg prescribes, in the initial stage directions, “a large kitchen,” the rear wall of which “is slanted inwards and upstage from the left.” The reason for this unusual arrangement is probably not to suggest a claustrophobic space, for why, in that case, should the kitchen be “large”? As already indicated, the reason is rather that it gives the audience the feeling that the unseen part of the kitchen, indicated also by the protruding “end” of the dining table at right, is to be found in the auditorium. It is a way of demolishing the barrier between stage and auditorium in order to involve the audience as much as possible in the action. This arrangement means, however, that the exterior seen through the glass doors to the right – the Count’s park – is hardly visible for those spectators sitting far to the right in the theatre. As a consequence, they would be unable to see how the sunrise “is lighting up the tops of the trees in the park” – one of the few light indications in the text. With regard to properties, the text contains certain specifications which, due to the smallness of the objects, seem wasted on the spectator. This applies, for example, to the “utensils of copper, bronze, iron, and pewter” found on the kitchen shelves. Similarly, it would be difficult for a spectator to discover that the kitchen table is of white “pine,” whereas a characteristic ornamentation may possibly indicate that the spice-jar is, if not 9
“Japanese,” at least oriental; like Julie, it seems quite out of place in this very Swedish kitchen; originally meant for another purpose by the aristocratic family, it has eventually become a piece of gesunkenes Kulturgut. A modern spectator, to whom the whole kitchen necessarily appears old-world, would hardly be able to see that the bell is especially “oldfashioned.” While the reader in all these cases receives more explicit or detailed information than the spectator, the opposite is naturally true of the overwhelming part of the information presented in the play. Take, for example, the costumes. The text informs us that Kristin wears “a light-colored cotton dress,” but the color is not specified. How Julie is dressed in the beginning the reader never gets to know – in contrast to the spectator, via the director and costume designer. Toward the end the reader learns that she is “in travelling clothes”; what these clothes exactly look like only the spectator will know. As Hans-Göran Ekman (1991: 75) notes, costume is one of the few semiotic categories not mentioned in the Preface. The reader learns that there are “lilac bushes in bloom” outside the kitchen and that there are “lilacs in flower” in the Japanese jar on the kitchen table, but only the spectator learns whether the lilacs are white or violet. The reader is told that Jean carries “a pair of large riding boots” into the kitchen, but only the spectator will notice if they are brown or black. The reader is informed that Jean places them “on the floor where they remain clearly visible,”6 but the spectator can see if they are placed next to the stove, next to the kitchen table or somewhere else. The reader learns that there are “some chairs” around the dinner table; the spectator knows how many they are and exactly what they look like. Gestures will easily influence our perception of what a character says. When Kristin in the beginning “rumples [JEAN’S] hair,” her gesture “affectionately” contradicts her teasing of him. 6 A downstage position will mark the Count’s metonymic dominance (Elam 66).
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And when Jean, a little later, tells Kristin that she would “make a good wife,” he confirms what he is saying by “putting his arm about her waist,” a gesture that is ironically echoed when he later “puts his arm around [JULIE’S] waist.” Because the references to gestures in the text are sparse, it is fairly easy for the reader to discover the correspondence between the last two situations. For the spectator, on the other hand, these correspondences run the risk of drowning in the host of kinesic signifiers characterizing every performance text. For example, if Jean’s putting his arm around Kristin’s waist happens only once and if he uses the same gesture for Julie only once, it is likely that the spectator will discover the correspondence. The likeliness that he will do so is further increased if Jean’s gesture toward the two women is made prominent or unusual in some way. The relationship between words and gestures can take many different shapes. Consider Jean’s attempt to seduce Julie after the intercourse has taken place: JEAN. [-] He starts to feel passionate again. Miss Julie, you’re a fine woman, far too good for the likes of me. You’ve been the victim of an intoxication, and you want to cover it up by pretending you love me. You don’t, apart, perhaps, from falling for my looks – and in that case, your love’s no better than mine.
For the reader it is clear that Jean’s flattery is determined by what is said in the acting direction. Will the spectator from Jean’s physical behavior be able to conclude the same? The flattery is immediately followed by a reproach, serving to drag Julie down to his own level. Within a single speech Jean vacillates between his need to adore Julie and to regard her as his equal. Now, suppose we keep the lines but exchange the gestures, as a director might,7 into the following: The example is actually taken from Ingmar Bergman’s 1985 production at Dramaten in Stockholm. 7
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JEAN. [-] He fondles her breasts. Miss Julie, you’re a fine woman, far too good for the likes of me. He kisses her neck. You’ve been the victim of an intoxication, While kneeling, he kisses her breasts. and you want to cover it up by pretending you love me. You don’t, apart, perhaps, from falling for my looks Puts his hand underneath her dress. – and in that case, your love’s no better than mine.
There is now an enormous discrepancy between Jean’s verbal respect and admiration of Julie on one hand and the sexual urge demonstrated in his rather respectless actions on the other. He continues his speech with the remark that he could never be satisfied by being “simply the animal” to Julie, an expression that ties in with the animal imagery of the play. But before saying this he behaves in the second version very much like an animal. More strongly than in the drama text, the words in this version belie the ‘truth’ that is acted out. The discrepancy with regard to gestures between reader and spectator reception goes also for the related phenomenon of proxemics or stage positions. Here again Strindberg is quite restrictive in his indications. For example, when Julie and Jean enter the kitchen after their intercourse in his room, we do not learn where in the kitchen their conversation takes place. Are they close together or far apart?8 Do they both stand or is one of them sitting down, so that a difference in reaction to what has just happened or even a sense of hierarchy can be sensed? Decisions with regard to stage positions, so-called blocking, help determine the mental climate between the characters in a play at every single point. Proxemics may affect the nature of the speech situations although it is, perhaps, more natural to reverse this statement and assume that decisions concerning speech situations will affect the grouping of the characters. Consider the following example: 8 Edward T. Hall (Elam 65) distinguishes between intimate distance (physical contact), personal distance (1½-4 feet), social distance (4-12 feet), and public distance (12-25 feet).
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There are two shrill rings on the bell; MISS JULIE jumps to her feet; JEAN changes his coat. JEAN. His Lordship’s home! – What if Kristin – – – Goes to the speaking tube; knocks and listens. MISS JULIE. Now he has been to his desk? JEAN. This is Jean, sir! Listens. Note that the audience cannot hear what the COUNT says. Yes, sir! At once!
Jean is here positioned by the speaking tube, whereas Julie’s position is unmarked. A director may place her close to Jean or far away from him, depending on the choice he makes with regard to the speech situations. The reader is likely to regard the first two speeches – JEAN. His Lordship’s home! – What if Kristin – – – [-] MISS JULIE. Now he has been to his desk?
– as a regular duologue: Jean and Julie address each other. But the speeches may also be seen as two pseudo-monologues: Jean and Julie are thinking aloud; momentarily they experience themselves as being alone. Two more variants are possible: Jean addresses Julie but she, lost in thoughts, is thinking aloud; Julie addresses Jean but he, lost in thoughts, is thinking aloud. The four alternatives may be formalized: 1. Jean ↔ 2. Jean | 3. Jean → | 4. Jean | ←
Julie; Julie; Julie; Julie.
It is obvious that a spectator who is confronted with one of the situations 2-4 will experience this rather differently from what we have considered the most likely situation for the reader. The information provided for the reader can temporally coincide with that offered to the spectator. This is the case when it says in the beginning that Kristin “is standing at the stove, fry13
ing something in a frying pan.” Here it is kept secret what Kristin is frying. Not until a page later do we learn that it is veal kidney. Much more common than such reader/spectator simultanëity of information is discrepancy – as when the reader is informed that Julie “looks at her watch,” although he has not earlier learned that she had a watch. Provided we deal with a visible watch, the spectator may be aware of its existence the moment Julie enters the stage. However, as we have already noted, discrepancy of information often goes in the opposite direction: the reader is informed earlier and/or more clearly than the spectator. An important difference concerns simultanëity in another sense. As readers we easily neglect non-speaking characters. Pages on end we may hardly be aware of their existence. As spectators we cannot help notice their presence on the stage, a presence which through pantomimic acting may even be prominent. Similarly, as readers we tend to forget scenery, properties and costume once they have been introduced. As spectators we constantly combine what we see and hear. The dialogue is experienced in relation to the visual context. Once Jean has put down the Count’s boots, the reader tends to forget them – except when they are momentarily reactivated, as when Jean starts to brush them or when he kicks them. For the spectator, on the other hand, the boots are continually present and can become prominent also when lines in the dialogue indirectly relate to them, as when Jean reminds Julie that there is a class barrier between them: “there’s his Lordship.” This is another way of saying that the owner of the boots and the power they represent are more obtrusive for the spectator than for the reader. It follows from what has already been said that as spectators we may combine different semiotic categories in a way that would be less natural or even impossible for the reader. Take the example of Julie’s ‘lacking’ costume in the beginning of the play and consider it in relation to one of the properties: the lilacs in the Japanese jar. For the reader Julie’s costume at this point is un14
marked, non-existent, whereas the lilacs may be either white or violet. In the Preface Strindberg refers to “the powerful afrodisiac influence of the flowers” – a seductive quality that those who have not read the Preface may or may not be aware of. For the spectator, Julie’s costume will necessarily be marked in one way or another, and the lilacs will be either white or violet. Let us assume that in a performance both Julie’s costume and the lilacs are violet. Consider this option in relation to the following passage: JEAN gallantly. You ladies have your secrets, perhaps? MISS JULIE flips him in the face with her handkerchief. Nosey! JEAN. Oh, what a lovely smell of violets!
Given a violet costume and violet lilacs, Jean’s reference to Julie’s perfume as smelling “of violets” becomes a suggestive hint for the spectator, indicating that Julie’s handkerchief – and by implication Julie herself – functions as an afrodisiac to Jean. Her ambiguous handling of the handkerchief – letting it touch his nose in a gesture that is at once dismissive and seductive – anticipates his ambiguous handling of one of the lilac twigs later, a gesture seemingly meant to spare her the ‘smell’ of the outdoor toilet he is just referring to but in reality a means to letting her be influenced by the afrodisiac. In either case a smell-providing property is used to influence the other character and to relieve the agent of responsibility. Both actions are minor, almost unnoticeable preludes to the hypnosis scene at the end of the play. Given a white costume and white lilacs, the connection between Julie’s violet perfume on the one hand and her costume and the lilacs on the other is obscured. Instead the whiteness of her dress combined with the whiteness of the flowers, which here too function as aphrodisiacs, indicates genuine or pretended virginity, in either case disguising sexual desire. With this choice of color the following speeches, exchanged after the intercourse, are highlighted: 15
MISS JULIE. [-] Midsummer Night! The night of innocent games... JEAN. Innocent? Hm!
A white dress and white lilacs would also, as signs of lost virginity or, more widely, innocence, meaningfully relate to the play’s imagery of dirtiness and references to fallen women. Naturally a color contrast between costume and lilacs is also possible – a violet costume versus white lilacs or vice versa – although such a solution seems less meaningful. Paralinguistics is certainly the area where the gap between reader and spectator is unusually wide. The reader here receives very sparse information, since Strindberg only indicates the way in which speeches are enunciated when it is of particular importance. Jean speaks “crossly,” “gallantly,” “politely,” “impertinently, yet respectfully,” “boldly.” Julie speaks “sharply,” “softly,” “sentimentally,” “desperately,” “dully,” “ecstatically.” Most lines are of course left paralinguistically unmarked and very little is indicated about rhythm, tempo, pitch, loudness, intonation, emphasis and pronunciation (idiolects, sociolects). Loudness is suggested when someone “screams.” Emphasis is similarly suggested by italics, when Jean, in order to impress upon the uneducated Kristin, points out that kidney is his great “délice.”9 Even so, for a recipient today the drama text may well seem paralinguistically over-directed. There are historical reasons for this. It is not accidental that Strindberg in his later years referred to himself as “director.” This profession was in his time still emerging and the playwrights of his generation consequently felt a greater need than today’s dramatists to prescribe even the way in which lines should be spoken. At times we may find acting directions which are difficult or even impossible to recreate on the stage. When Julie suggests to Jean that they should, in Swedish, “dua” each other, that is, ad9 This is more obvious in the source text since, unlike English practice, it is not
normal in Swedish to put foreign words in italics.
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dress each other informally, she says it not only “shyly” – this is a functional acting direction – but also “with genuine femininity,” which is an acting direction easily understood by the reader but hard to communicate to the spectator. When Jean at one point “wants to take her [JULIE] round the waist to kiss her,” it may be difficult for the spectator to grasp this unfulfilled intention. Julie later moves “as though drawn there against her will” toward the chopping block, where her beloved greenfinch has just been slaughtered by Jean. Still later she falls into the arms of Kristin “as though seeking protection.” And when the kitchen is lit up by the rising sun, she rubs her hands “as though warming them before a fire.” While the meaning in all these cases is quite clear to the reader, the spectator runs the risk of misinterpreting the gestures visualizing it. The most fundamental difference, perhaps, between the reader’s and the spectator’s experience has to do with their diverging ability to empathize with the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. We rarely cry over the paper characters of the drama text, but when we witness their flesh-and-blood counterparts in the theatre, our eyes may well water. As is well-known especially to cinema-goers, music – whether diegetic or non-diegetic – appeals strongly to our emotional involvement. The difference between the graphic ‘music’ offered to the reader and the real one offered to the spectator is considerable. During Kristin’s pantomime “faint sound of violin music at a distance”10 is heard, and when the peasants a little later approach the kitchen, they sing a slanderous song which to those readers who do not know it – only the text is reproduced – lacks a melody. The spectator, on the other hand, hears both words and melody. Unusual words, words in foreign languages and allusions may provide difficulties for all recipients. For the reader these The Swedish word “fiolmusik” (fiddle music) can be either singular or plural. 10
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difficulties can, as was initially pointed out, be overcome, since he can always turn to encyclopedias and dictionaries for clarification; for the source text reader there are, in addition, ample word explanations accompanying each volume of Samlade Verk; similarly, the target text reader may be provided with clarifying notes by the translator. The spectator does not have this possibility. When Julie in the source text says that the parents had “paktum,” for what is now called ‘äktenskapsförord,’ few Swedes would understand this archaic word. Similarly, Jean’s calling Julie in the source text “domestik-pyscha” would present difficulties for a Swedish recipient. “Domestik” (from French ‘domestique’) is nowadays an unusual word in Swedish and so is the archaic “pyscha,” a vulgar word for prostitute. Ironically, a spectator listening to a target version of this abusive expression would normally have no problems here, since translators in such cases tend to make the text more intelligible; in S 1998 “paktum” is rendered as “settlement,” “pyscha” as “servant’s tart.” Those who do not know French will miss the significance when Julie flatters Jean with her “Très gentil, monsieur Jean! Très gentil!” and Jean answers her with his “Vous voulez plaisanter, madame!” Their French helps to eliminate the class barrier between them while strengthening the barrier toward the uneducated Kristin. The recipients will here be divided into two groups: those who understand what Julie and Jean are saying and those who, like Kristin, do not. Similarly, those who are not familiar with the Bible will be unable to understand several allusions in the drama text, for example Kristin’s reference in the end to Jesus’ words about the Last Judgement (Mat. 19: 30): “There the last shall be first – .” Kristin here alludes to the fact that the difference between higher and lower classes, masters (the “first”) and servants (“the last”), will be reversed in life hereafter and that the biblical words thus assure her, Kristin, a place in heaven. Like Kristin, Julie a little later, contemplating suicide, expresses a hope for a blessed after-life. Helped by Jean who reinterprets Kristin’s allusion – “the last” 18
is now taken to mean the last of one’s family – Julie can console herself with the idea that, being “the very last,” she makes herself worthy of heaven. Her contamination of Kristin’s biblical and her own secular interpretation of “the last” results in the bizarre thought that her being the ultimate member of her lineage would justify a place in heaven. In her desperation Julie is catching at a straw. A rather different case is the “Turkish pavilion” in the Count’s park. Readers and spectators rarely understand that this building is actually “an earth closet, or toilet,” the clarification provided in S 1998.11 The expression can, however, hardly be replaced by any other since Jean’s euphemism serves to reveal how aware he is that he is addressing a representative of these same classes. The list of differences between reader and spectator reception could easily be extended if more unusual aspects were taken into account, such as descriptions in the acting directions of how someone’s present appearance contrasts with what it has been in the past or the mention of nonentities, that is, information in the acting directions about something lacking in a character’s appearance.12 Such phenomena are, however, absent in Miss Julie and, I suspect, in Strindberg’s plays generally. Unlike an epic or a lyrical text, a drama text, as we have seen, has a double recipient. It is per definition an intermediary product. Being a hybrid genre, it latently contains a number of implicitly binary questions. What is the situation of reception at every moment like for the graphically oriented reader compared to that of the audiovisually oriented spectator? What is
11 Disappointingly, SV 27: 347 merely states that it concerns a wooden building with Turkish ornaments. Evert Sprinchorn (39) seems to have been the first to discover the symbolic parallel between little Jean’s getting dirty in the Count’s outdoor toilet and Julie’s getting ‘dirty’ in Jean’s room. Both become soiled when they move outside their habitual environment. 12 For examples from Ibsen, see Törnqvist 1998: 78ff.
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gained and what is lost when one sign system is transformed into another? What are the consequences when Strindberg’s stage and acting directions are neglected? What does the unavoidable addition of such directions (in audiovisual form) in the performance text mean? Do they disturb the coherence of the play? Do they enrich it thematically? To what extent are plays that are now a century old linguistically accessible to a reader and a spectator? These are all questions which have to do with the double status of the drama text. When answering them it is of great importance to make note of the fact that the reader’s experience of the drama text in many ways is utterly different from the spectator’s of the performance text; that the former’s Miss Julie is not the latter’s; that one knows which text one is talking about.
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