The title sounds like a provocation, given Strindberg’s reputation for misogyny. In fact this short double bill, comprising The Stronger (1889) and Storm (1907), directed by Jacob Murray, not only offers a more nuanced view of gender than you might expect but is also as much about human insecurity as sexual politics.
In The Stronger, a voluble married woman meets a female friend in a cafe and slowly realises, through the latter’s total silence, that she was once her husband’s mistress: Strindberg’s skill lies in leaving you pondering which of the two women exercises the real power.
Storm – last seen under the title Thunder in the Air at the Gate in 1989 – might seem to provide ammunition to those who see Strindberg as a woman-hater. On a febrile summer night a character known simply as The Gentleman confronts Gerda, the young wife from whom he has rancorously divorced and who has been secretly living in the flat above with her new husband.
The play could be seen as Strindberg’s revenge on his ex-wife, Harriet Bosse, but what strikes one is the acidulous self-portrait he provides in the male protagonist. The man claims to be seeking “the peace of old age” but he is shown to be a restless paranoid with a reputation for tyranny. The play is more about universal guilt than female infidelity and Paul Herzberg accurately captures the raging neurosis beneath the hero’s surface calm. Sara Griffiths, as both the wavering Gerda and the worried wife in The Stronger, also confirms that Strindberg’s women are as vivid, varied and unstable as his men.
- At Jermyn Street theatre, London, until 26 November. Box office: 020-7287 2875.
