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| Robert Symonds, Priscilla Pointer. |
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| Priscilla Pointer, Robert Symonds, Conrad Bain. |
This is an idiosyncratic version (it preferred to avoid the
term “adaptation”) of August Strindberg’s brutal dissection of married life, The Dance of Death (1900), looking at
the conjugal state through humorous, if jaundiced, eyes. Numerous
German-language productions had been seen in Europe before it was produced in
English.
In this black comical inversion of Strindbergian torment,
the relationships among the characters are depicted within the confines of a
boxing ring, and the scenes are denoted as 12 rounds in a boxing match, with
the stage manager (Jean-Daniel Noland) ringing a bell for each new slugfest.
Alice, the wife, was played by Priscilla Pointer, Edgar, her military husband,
was portrayed by Robert Symonds, Kurt, Alice’s cousin and co-conspirator, was
taken by Conrad Bain (later replaced by Ray Fry).
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| Ray Fry (who replaced Conrad Bain), Priscilla Pointer, Robert Symonds. |
Clive Barnes’s approving notice stated that “this deadly
caprice precisely captures that dangerous Strindbergian area of
unconsciousness” in a bright, “dazzling” production. But the opposing view was
couched in Walter Kerr’s belief that no improvement over the Swedish original
was apparent. “It is only emptier, deprived of both its intentional wit, and
its underlying seriousness.”
