A Dream Play by August Strindberg

A Dream Play Reviews

• 
  Lisa

  Homo Strindbergiensis - a sorry creature!
  
  Reading Strindberg’s most famous play for the third time, having seen it on different stages (from outdoors summer theatre over school play to highly professional performance) several times as well, it strikes me as one of those texts that will be helplessly lost in translation.
  
  Even though it is part of a European tradition, and strongly connects to modern theories on the subconscious and on dream experience, it is at the same time a very Swedish play, with the ambiguity of the Swedish language as one of its main themes and attractions.
  
  In Strindberg’s short introduction, he mentions the power of the dreamer’s consciousness, which reigns over all characters in the play, and the Swedish word “medvetande” implicitly contains that specific power of knowing: consciousness/med-vetande: the dreamer shares the knowing with the characters. The Latin root of the English word indicates the same connection. And the main theme of the play - to feel pity for humans, “medlidande”, is expressed in the word for pity/med-lidande: the dreamer suffers with them.
  
  Humans are sinful creatures, but we are supposed to pity them anyway, because they suffer. That is the fleeting, floating, recurring message of the dreamlike sequences. This is expressed in the language of the frequently repeated sentence:
  
  “Det är synd om människorna!”
  
  It is not possible to translate this directly into any other language I know. It means “Humans should be pitied”, but the word “synd” also means “sin”, thus evoking the idea of “There is sin around human beings”, which is what we should pity them for.
  
  Life is complicated, painful, hard, and sinful, but after a nightmare, when we wake up, we embrace it for a moment, just to escape the pain of sleep. And in the evening, sleep gives us a break from the pain of life. Twice a day, therefore, we escape the eternal trouble of conscious or subconscious pain for the fleeting moment when we change from sleep to waking and vice versa.
  
  Strindberg’s take on life was dark, very dark, and he certainly knew and felt that he was human in his own double definition:
  
  “Det är synd om Strindberg!”
  
  Prey and predator, passionate and active, a guilty victim. A dreamlike creature, and creator of nightmares.
  
  My favourite part in the play features the anonymous POET, who tries to reconstruct the moment humans were made - from clay. His consciousness goes from ecstasy to skepticism, to irony, to sarcasm, and back to ecstasy again during the vague, dreamy creation process, which moves from one fragmentary association with clay to the next:
  
  “Diktaren (extatiskt) :
  Av lera skapade guden Ptah människan på en krukmakarskiva, en svarv, - (Skeptiskt) eller vad fan som hälst annat! … (Extatiskt) Av lera skapar bildhuggaren sitt mer eller mindre odödliga mästerverk, - (Skeptiskt) som oftast är bara skräp! (Extatiskt) Av lera tillverkas dessa för skafferiet så nödvändiga kärl, vilka med ett gemensamt namn kallas krukor, tallrikar, - (Skeptiskt) - det rör mig så lite förresten vad de kallas! (Extatiskt) Detta är leran! När lera är tunnflytande kallas den gyttja - C’est mon affaire! (Ropar) Lina!”
  [The poet (Ecstatic):
  Out of clay the god Ptah created the human being on a potter’s wheel, - (Skeptical) or whatever the devil else! … (Ecstatic) Out of clay the sculptor creates his more or less immortal masterpiece, - (Skeptical) which most often is only trash! (Ecstatic) Out of clay are created these containers, so very necessary for the cupboard, which have the common name of pots, plates. - (Skeptical) - But I don’t care at all what they are called! (Ecstatic) This is the clay! When clay is diluted it is called mud - C’est mon affaire! (Calls) Lina!)]
  
  Is this a conscious, or an unconscious, reference to Milton’s Paradise Lost, and his angry human, yelling out:
  
  “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
  To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
  From darkness to promote me?”
  
  Just like Mary Shelley chose this quote to begin her
  Frankenstein, it seems to accompany Strindberg’s pendulum movement between deep depression and exaltation, between the tedium of everyday life and art, between meaning and nonsense.
  
  Still a favourite, after all those years!
• 
  Oziel Bispo

  Agnes ou Inês , filha do deus Indra,é enviada a terra para  tentar entender a razão dos sentimentos humanos; suas dores ,seus sofrimentos , suas aflições e suas melancolias. As conclusões que esse ser divino tira dos mortais da terra são muito negativas: “os homens são dignos de lástimas” Inês vê o ser humano como triste, amargo e frustado. Como é um sonho, tudo pode acontecer (um admirador espera   a vida inteira à porta de um teatro para ver sua amada Vitória, chaveiros são chamados para abrirem portais para o infinito) e realmente acontece pois há mais de 40 personagens diferentes.Strindberg criou um mundo misterioso e enigmático ,onde só talvez forças divinas possam ajudar o ser humano a sair desse marasmo e sofrimento.
• 
  Norah Una Sumner

  RTC.
• 
  Ben

  . . .And since dreams are more often painful than happy, a tone of melancholy, and of compassion for all living things, runs through the swaying narrative. Sleep, supposedly a liberator, is often a torturer, but when torment is at its worst, an awakening reconciles the sufferer with reality. No matter how agonizing reality can be, at this moment, compared with a tormenting dream it is a pleasure.
  
  August Strindberg frequently referred to A Dream Play as his "favorite" work, but he also referred to it as "the child of my greatest pain." Just as was the case with Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Strindberg's A Dream Play is not only among the artist's most important works, but was a work with dreamlike and surrealist elements that followed from a nervous breakdown. Is madness the price one pays to create great art? Sometimes it seems.
  
  One thing is for certain, A Dream Play is certainly a revolutionary work, with Strindberg furthering his break away from realism and naturalism in much the same way that Federico Fellini (and Ingmar Bergman in his own way) would do in film, moving from neorealism ultimately to surrealism, blending the dreamworld with the waking world. Although To Damascus (a play that I've yet to read, and one that is considered by some to be Strindberg's true "masterpiece") preceded A Dream Play by two years (both starring Strindberg's third wife, Harriet Bosse, when initially produced in Sweden), it is interesting that Strindberg didn't consider its style an experimentation that he would just as soon abandon when working on his next play (as is the case with some of his decisions in Miss Julie), but would instead expand on these, taking some great leaps forward, giving A Dream Play a very contemporary and even postmodern feel.
  
  Apparently when he first wrote To Damascus, Strindberg had sent a copy of that work to his contemporary Henrik Ibsen, whom Strindberg referred to as "the Master, from whom he learned much." Not having read that earlier work, but having read the author's note at the beginning of A Dream Play, in which he writes that in both plays he "has attempted to imitate the disconnected but seemingly logical form of a dream," I feel that in both cases Strindberg perhaps owes some debt to the early Ibsen's Peer Gynt, which like A Dream Play not only blends reality and illusion or fantasy, but has an impressively long cast of characters (unlike Strindberg's earlier plays and, likewise, unlike Ibsen's later plays). And like Peer Gynt it seems that A Dream Play, fascinating as it is, would present extraordinary technical difficulties, with rapidly changing scenes and images like castles that grow from the ground and later burn and then blossom.
  
  The difficulties in staging such a play are highlighted by Ingmar Bergman in his illuminating autobiography, A Magic Lantern. He stated of his later difficulties in staging some of Strindberg's works (though less due to technical issues than personal problems for him and his cast, though he does discuss general production issues with A Dream Play as well) that it seemed as though Strindberg's ghost was standing in his way:
  
  Strindberg has been showing displeasure with me in recent years. . . . [He goes on to give several examples]. That number of misfortunes is no coincidence. For some reason, Strindberg did not want me. The thought saddened me, for I love him.
  
  For Bergman it seemed, the plays of Strindberg were his MacBeth, Shakespeare's supposedly cursed "Scottish play."
  
  Because of the difficulties that the play presents to theatre directors this would be a very fascinating play to see staged, and it would be even more interesting to compare different productions of it to see how different directors and theatre companies transcend the technical obstacles which the play presents.
  
  In terms of content, interestingly, while there is no evidence suggesting that Strindberg read Sigmund Freud (just as there is no evidence that Proust read Freud, despite surprising similarities), his writing on dreams (which he explores through art) is very similar to that of Freud. Perhaps cosmically or historically there is something to this and many artists and thinkers were making the same realizations at the same time for whatever reason, drawing from the same universal pool of knowledge (perhaps someone has written on this; if so it would be an interesting read, I'm sure, and if not here's an idea for exploration -- provided one has the time to commit the endless hours of research time to this task).
  
  A Dream Play is seen by some as a forerunner to Expressionism and Surrealism and, as in a dream, scenes shift rapidly and with little logical reason, characters come and go and different symbols emerge here and there (a few very sexual), some more obvious than others, just as in Freud's theories on dreams.
  
  As with many a Strindberg play, although this one is in a different style from his early works, there is still an autobiographical strand in this work. Strindberg had just gone through a third divorce, this time with Harriet Bosse, who played the lead in the original production of this work, and had (as with his other relationships) turned the gritty side of them into artistic material. And, also as with Strindberg's other works, this play operates in a mythical world and draws on certain familiar motifs from fairy tales, though unlike his earlier works (because of its dreamlike qualities) it is harder to pin down in a specific socio-historical period.
  
  There was so much to this short play -- too much to elaborate on here (though if I pick this play up again I'd like to expand on the many thematic points that I left out of this review) -- and it was constantly drawing my mind this way and that to other works that I've read, some of which Strindberg may or may not have been intentionally alluding to (the stories of Balzac, the poetry of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe, the plays of Ibsen, the work of Freud and Marx) and to so many works that seemed to owe a great deal to this play (like Beckett's Waiting for Godot and, of course, the films of Bergman and Fellini).
  
  I suppose that insomuch as the themes are so similar to other Strindberg plays, while the structure, form and setting are so different, that it is probably more justifiable that I focus in this review on the latter points. In my review of Strindberg's The Dance of Death, after all, I note that (like many artists) his work dealt with recurring themes (which are identified in that review). This play took many of those same familiar themes and did something new and exhilarating with them, making it instantly my favorite of the four Strindberg plays that I've read to date.
• 
  Sarah

  BLIND MAN: ...I once asked a little boy why the sea was salt, and the boy, whose father was away on a long journey, said right away, "The sea is salt because the sailors cry so much." "But why do the sailors cry so much?" I asked. "Because," he said, "they always have to go away from home- and that's why they're always drying their handkerchiefs up on the masthead!" And then I asked him, "But why do people cry when they're sad?" And he said, "That's because they have to wash the glasses of their eyes so they can see better."
  
  A Dream Play is one of Strindberg's plays that deals with what is real and what is not- essentially, it is set up to feel like a dream, with characters blending together and the story wandering from place to place, just as a dream would wander. I have seen this done by him before, particularly in To Damascus, but this work really masters the technique that I sense he was working to accomplish. I am glad that this play is so different than his other works, because it's fantastic and new for Strindberg.
  
  The story, from what I can tell, is about the daughter of Indra coming down to Earth to see how the humans live. She meets a plethora of characters, including an Officer who pines over the ever-present Victoria, a Stage-Door Keeper who used to be a prima ballerina, and a Poet who insists that everything is a dream. There is no cast list at the beginning of the play, so there have been a lot of productions that have had enormous casts covering all parts, but I think that Strindberg made all of these characters to be multiple individuals; therefore, there have been small casts for this play as well. I enjoy the confusion taking place, mostly because it really feels like a dream; things wander in and out , the scene changes rapidly and illogically, unknown time lapses happen. How odd, but how brilliant!
  
  While being weird, this play is also very much a poignant play exposing the facets of the human psyche. every character has a flaw that makes him or her a "poor soul" according to the daughter of Indra. Every character is fixated on something or another, and in that way, they have a problem. I really was able to get emotional in many places because some of the stories told by characters were very sad or very poignant. It's incredible that such a surreal play can still make me feel something.
  
  All I can really say to sum this up is that I would absolutely love to see this play performed. It is so surreal, and the sets are so complex and rapidly changing. I'm sure that it would be lots of fun to see on the stage.
• 
  Paris (spiritedaway)

  Here is a book I got to know thanks to Bergman's Fanny & Alexander. The following quote, is Bergman's filmography in a nutshell.
  “Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns.”
• 
  Amanda Skoog

  English title: A Dream Play.
  
  I haven´t read anything by August Strindberg before, but growing up in Sweden it´s completely impossible not being raised into knowing and believing he is one of the greatest authors coming from this long, northern country of ours. In the context and on the topic of his words, it feels impossible not starting to formulate your sentences with more metaphors, with more angst and drama and with just more than you normally would. You almost unconsciously know you should respect him and that his work is something which we should appreciate and bow before.
  
  Now, I have some mixed opinions on this after finally getting a taste of my own, but I´m choosing to leave it for my future review on Miss Julie, where I´m already suspicioning I will have a long debate ahead of me to try to type out.
  
  But for now, the Dream.
  
  I haven´t started reading Miss Julie yet, but I´ve watched the recording of it played by Bibi Andersson and Thommy Berggren from 1969 in class the other week. While, once again, that tragedy certainly caused some knots to inflict themselves in my otherwise quite clear view of Strindberg, just hearing the language, the old and dramatic that some consider pretentious and ostentatious, put a kind of spell on me and I found it was exactly the type of words that I like. The type of words that don´t just make me love the story, but it makes me love the story and the dialog and each and every little word and this passage and that. It makes me appreciate words and it makes me want to make my own.
  
  So when the copy of Miss Julie given to me from school also included A Dream Play, I got a whim this Sunday to maybe just try reading it. I didn´t really want to take a break from reading Strange the Dreamer (apparently April weather is making me want nothing but dreams) but something in me just wanted to see more. I wanted to hear more, see if that thing bothering me in Miss Julie would continue and more importantly, I wanted more of his beautifully put words that (even if this sounds like a drama in itself) reminded me how beautiful my mother tongue can be.
  
  So, down I sat, book and coffee in hand. I thought that maybe it was going to be too hard, the language too old and complicated to be available for someone like me. I also thought that even if it is, what is the worst thing that can happen? So in I went – and let me tell you, the dream swallowed me whole and kept me for one long sitting until it was finished.
  
  A Dream Play, is written in a form that revolutionized the idea of how dramas can be created and played and it certainly surprised – not to mention confused – me when reading. There is structure, but it´s constantly moving and it flows in and out of different scenes. At one point I found myself flicking back and forth a few pages, realizing the scene and the characters had morphed into something else and left me without any clue as to when this actually happened. It made me a little annoyed the first couple times it occurred, I felt like I just wasn´t getting it, but then I realized that is the exact point. It´s all a dream, and just like our dreams it flowed in and out and it made things turn into new things without making any sense or being logical at all. At one point you´re following the officer and then the lawyer takes over and at one point the oak tree is just a tree, then in the next, it has conveniently turned into a coat hanger and I almost want to laugh because while reading, this all made perfect sense. When explaining it afterward, it sounds like complete nonsense, but in the moment, it was logical and clear and it really is like trying to explain a dream.
  
  Not only has Strindberg managed to replicate the lucid nature of dreaming, he is also using plenty of symbols and there´s many dialogues and lines where I was smiling at how brilliantly – how cleverly – you can formulate words and sentences.
  
  There is one quite known one where I actually had to just pause and appreciate it, and it goes something like this:
  
  A blind man asks a boy why the sea is salt, the boy replies saying it´s because sailors cry so much. The man goes on to ask why the sailors cry so much and the boy replies and says it´s because they have to go away from home for very long, which is why they dry their handkerchiefs on the masthead. Finally, the blind man asks why people cry when they are sad. The boy replies, “That’s because they have to wash the glasses of their eyes so they can see better.”
  
  *swoons*
  
  Finally, we are led to realize the whole thing has been a dream of the character “the Daugther” also known as Agnes. We also find out that she is actually the Daughter of Indra, who according to Indian folktale is the god who sent his daughter to earth so she could see how the humans are living.
  
  It all wraps up and as you get closer and closer towards the end of the drama things get clearer and clearer. You realize it´s all a dream and it all ends in fire, as well as the constantly growing fairytale castle stopping to bloom its giant chrysanthemum crown.
  
  It kept me locked down, completely submerged in this state of dreaming, and waking I find I want to see more.
  
  5/5 stars.
• 
  Frida

  Till för att uppleva, inte läsa.
• 
  Ali

  تصور نمی کنم این نمایش نامه ی استریندبرگ، به فارسی ترجمه شده باشد.
  استریندبرگ را با خواندن "مادموازل ژولی" شناختم. بعدها که آثار دیگری از او و ایبسن، نویسنده ی نروژی خواندم، بنظر می رسید حس غریب غربتی مشابه، همه جای فضا و شخصیت های آثار این دو نمایش نامه نویس را انباشته است. با دیدن فیلم های "برگمان" (سوئدی)، حس کردم با فضاهای ملانکولیک او پیش از آن آشنا بوده ام. چند سالی که ساکن جوامع اسکاندیناوی باشی این ملانکولی را بهتر درک می کنی؛ روزهای کوتاه و تاریک زمستان های بلند، و روزهای بلند و روشن تابستان های کوتاه! از دانمارک و سوئد که بالاتر بروی، تا نروژ و فنلاند و ایسلند، با تجربه ی شبی به بلندی چهارماه زمستان، و روز کشداری به وسعت سه ماه تابستان، و بادها و ابرهای عجولی که در چند لایه در گذر اند، و... دلزدگی ملانکولیکی در سینه ات انباشته می شود، به ویژه که از سمت "آفتاب" آمده باشی.
  کتمان نمی توان کرد که بسیاری از تحولات شگرف جوامع اسکاندیناوی مدیون نگاه پیشرو نویسندگانی چون ایبسن و استریندبرگ است که در اواخر قرن نوزده و ابتدای قرن بیستم زندگی می کردند. استریندبرگ اما بیش از ایبسن، درگیر مبارزه میان مذهب و آموزش مذهبی، با جهان تازه ای ست که بخش غربی اروپا را فراگرفته بود و به شکلی آرام، گسترده می شد. همان تقابل ها که در فیلم های برگمان دیده می شود.
  یوهان اگوست استریندبرگ (1912-1849)، در مکاتب مختلف تیاتری، نمایش نامه نوشته. او به عنوان پدر ادبیات مدرن، و "اتاق قرمز" یکی از اولین قصه هایش (1879)، به عنوان اولین رمان مدرن سوئد شناخته می شود. عمده ترین نمایش نامه های استریندبرگ، آنهایی هستند که از سوی کلیسای مسلط، مذموم شناخته شدند. به علت مخالفت کلیسا و جامعه ی مذهبی، استریندبرگ مدتی ساکن آلمان و فرانسه بود.
  
• 
  Sidharth Vardhan

  Surealer and surealer!
• 
  Emre

  "Bir gün bir çocuğa sormuştum, deniz neden tuzludur diye. Babası uzun bir sefere çıkmıştı. Çocuk hemencecik karşılık verdi: Deniz tuzludur, çünkü denizciler durmadan ağlar! Neden denizciler bu kadar çok ağlar ki? Çünkü dedi yolculukları bitmez, onun için de mendillerini hep direklere asıp kuruturlar! Gene sordum: Ya niçin insanlar üzgün olunca ağlar? Çünkü,dedi,daha duru görebilelim diye gözlerin camını arasıra yıkamak lazım!"
• 
  Niloofar

  ترجیح میدم فعلا امتیازی بهش ندم ، شاید دوباره خوندمش و بعد امتیاز دادم ، فعلا نظرم روی ۲/۵ تا ۳ هست… شاید کمتر یا بیشتر شد!!
  نمیدونم :)))
  این کتاب با هربار خوندن عجیب‌تر میشه و حرفی بیشتر برای گفتن داره !! دوباره خوندمش و امتیازم بهش ۴ هست فعلا :))
• 
  Johanne Stokland

  Asså…neeeh…
  Forstår at livet e tema men gidd å kom på noe mer originalt enn masse kristne symboler. I tillegg syns eg at livet som tema, eller ka e livet, e ikje noe eg vil se på/lese fordi hvis man skjenne seg igjen i d, så e d kun fordi du gjennomgår ein krise og eg tror ikje noe gått komme ut av å kjenna seg igjen i dette temaet. Føle d skape kaos i hodet på tilskuerne og litt panikk…not good
• 
  slewan

  stark 3,5
  man fattade ju inte början alls förän man läst typ 75% och alla bitar började falla på plats. då blev den riktigt bra. tror jag kommer njuta mer av den om jag läser om den. väldigt taggad på att se den på scen nu.
• 
  Maurizio Manco

  "Che pena, gli uomini!" (passim)
• 
  Miika

  Jessus tämähän pitää joskus ohjata. Tasoja. METAA.
• 
  Steven R. Kraaijeveld

  So this is what it means to be mortal---
  One misses even what one has not valued,
  One regrets even misdeeds never done…
  One yearns to go, and yet one longs to stay…
  So the heart's two halves are rent asunder,
  As if wild horses were pulling it apart, torn to pieces
  By contradiction, indecision, disharmony…

  In A Dream Play, Agnes, daughter of the Vedic god Indra, descends to Earth to discover whether the complaints and lamentations of its inhabitants are well-founded. What she finds is a tapestry of human misery in all (or at least in many) of its forms. With its fluid and shifting characters and scenes, the many allusions to mythology, religion, and philosophy, and the numerous variations upon a theme ("humans are to be pitied!") that take on a musical quality, A Dream Play is my favorite among plays by Strindberg that I have so far read. Someday, I want to see it performed – what an experience that would be.
• 
  Steven Godin

  Was I dreaming, or did I really just read this?
• 
  Matthew

  I cannot lie and say that overall I don’t really like dream works very much in literature. Whether it is Strindberg’s occasional works in the field, the weaker dream stories of H P Lovecraft or Camino Real by Tennessee Williams, I cannot muster up any enthusiasm for them.
  
  There are exceptions. I love Peter Pan, and I enjoy Alice in Wonderland. In both cases the dream-like quality is used to endow the stories with a sense of fun. In one sense both books feel like a game played by children in their mind, which will be interrupted when their mother calls them to dinner.
  
  I also adore Peer Gynt. Michael Meyer, a leading Ibsen translator who also translated my copy of A Dream Play, suggests that the last act of Peer Gynt is a dream play. I would go further and describe the last four acts of Peer Gynt as such.
  
  Why do I make an exception for that? I feel that beyond the freeform is a certain purposeful structure. Events in the last four acts constantly echo and consolidate events in the first act, as if Peer is playing out his hopes and fears in fantasy form.
  
  Hence the troll girls who beg Peer to rape him might be seen as a revenge fantasy for the girls who spurned Peer when he asked them to dance with him. The troll bride is the bride he stole, and who attaches herself to him. The loyal Solveig waiting for him for years is an ideal of a girl he met once, and who has possibly forgotten him. And so on.
  
  Still I have reviewed Peer Gynt elsewhere. What of A Dream Play? I am afraid I find it a little too freeform. There is an intention and meaning in Strindberg’s work, but it is applied so loosely that the dramatist could replace any element in the play without really changing its meaning much.
  
  The play is a mishmash of Buddhist ideas, dreamwork and harsh realism, but ultimately it is really about how wonderful the artist (i.e. Strindberg) is.
  
  Agnes, a daughter of the Vedic god Indra, descends to Earth to see if our constant complaining is justified. This is a Strindberg play, so yes. She experiences the injustices of the law courts, and the dreariness of marriage. Theology, philosophy, medicine and law offer conflicting and unsatisfactory answers.
  
  Only the Poet offers hope of something better, redeeming our problems by using his art to create a greater reality. No prizes for guessing that the noble Poet is Strindberg himself, offering himself as the chronicler of realism.
  
  This is patently absurd, as Strindberg’s works offer no objective reality, but are only a series of subjective neuroses. Marriages do not have to be as vicious as they are in Strindberg plays. Life doesn’t have to be endless suffering and disappointment, though of course all lives have some of this.
  
  One of Strindberg’s characters repeats his lessons at school, doomed to go in a circle round the same patterns as before. This is how I feel reading Strindberg, each play taking me round the same loop of hopeless paranoia and marital bitterness once more.
• 
  Fateme Beygi

  نمایش یک رویا، به تمامی یک رویاست.
  نمایش‌نامه‌ای انقدر رویایی، پر از تصاویر فراتر از واقعی در حوز‌ه‌ی ادبیات نمایشی کم پیدا می‌شود و باید زمان نوشتنش رو هم در نظر گرفت. درست است که الان با خیلی از امکانات اجرا کردن چنین کاری، محتمل و هنوز هم کمابیش دشوار است اما در دوره‌ی خودش، تقریبا چیزی غیر ممکن بوده.
  نمایش یک رویا روایت دختر ایندرا است که برای بودن کنار بشر، هبوط می‌کند و در این هبوط انسان بودن، احساسات مختلف، سختی‌ها و وظایف سنگین انسانی رو تجربه می‌کنه و... .
  همین خط داستانی نشون می‌ده که با چطور داستانی روبرو هستیم و بعد جابه‌جایی نقش‌ها در یکدیگر و یا دو نقشی که گاهی یکی هستند یا یک نقشی که گاهی دوتاست و مکان‌های نامعمول ماجرا مثل اون قلعه‌ی در حال رشد و تغییر صحنه‌های در لحظه همگی دست به دست هم داده‌ن تا این نمایش‌نامه‌ی استدریندبرگ تجربه‌ای غریب برای خواننده باشه.
  نمایش یک رویا در ذات واقعا نمایش‌دهنده‌ی عنوانشه؛ این که زندگی آدمیان رویایی است سخت برای دختر ایندرا و یا حضور دختر ایندرا بر روی زمین کنار آدمیان رویاییه که هرگز محقق نخواهد شد. این که یکی از خدایان پابه‌پای آدمی رنج بکشد و نتونه کاری برای نجات آدمی بکند... .
• 
  Heidi

  Tulin lukeneeksi tästä Jusa Peltoniemen käännöksen ja (modernisoidun) sovituksen, joka toimi minulle varsin hyvin. On se vain ihmisen elämä kurjaa. Tämän pääsee ja joutuu toteamaan Indra-jumalan tytär kun laskeutuu maahan ottamaan selvää onko elämä maan päällä niin kurjaa kuin kerrotaan. On se. Kaipuuta, pettymyksiä, köyhyyttä, kipua, häpeää ja katumusta. Elämä on unelmien tavoittamattomissa. Tomua ja savea vain. Runoilijat ovat unien näkijöitä ja kirjoittajia.
• 
  J

  I think the first half of this was hard to follow in print and I think this piece isn't a play you should read but one you should watch because so much is spectacle and tranformation and transfiguration that reading it fails to do it justice. The last third of the play is probably more potent than all the rest of it put together, so it's a 3-star first 2/3rds and a 4-star final third. Pity Goodreads won't spot you a half star.
• 
  kajsa

  "Jag frågade en gång ett barn varför havet var salt och barnet som hade en far på långresa svarade genast: havet är salt därför att sjömännen gråter så mycket. Varför gråter sjömännen så mycket då?... Jo, svarte han, därför att de jämt skall resa bort..."
  
  varför och hur har strindberg så mycket sant och klokt och vackert att säga om mänsklighet och levade?
• 
  Melanie

  Not quite sure what to think about this play, I will have to talk about it with my -Phd in humanities- husband. It is one of his favorites, but a little strange for me.
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  Edoterlia

  Ferdydurke vibes
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  Frida

  det är synd om människorna.
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  Diba Malmgren

  Fattar ingenting