Writer: August Strindberg
Adapter and Director: Richard Eyre
In a new adaptation written and directed by Richard Eyre, Strindberg’s classic play about isolation, marital strife and existential discontent becomes almost a screwball comedy that leans into some of the works it later inspired in its focus on bitter exchanges between long-suffering pair Edgar and Alice. Premiering at the Orange Tree Theatre with a starry cast, Dance with Death emphasises humour and is certainly crowd-pleasing and fun for the actors to play, but something of Strindberg’s atmosphere, the heart-rending impact of two people who never knew how to love one another, is lost among the hijinks.
Alice and Edgar approach their 25th wedding anniversary, praying that death will release them from each other, or at least the arrival of Alice’s cousin Kurt will appease their loneliness and provide some alleviation from each other’s company. But Kurt is soon embroiled in their games, fearing both of them as hostilities escalate, and when Edgar’s heart condition worsens, a final round begins in earnest.
Eyre’s approach clearly takes a new perspective on the play, and in a programme essay that references plays later influenced by Strindberg, including Look Back in Anger and particularly Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the latter seems to reflect on Eyre’s version of the play with its feisty and borderline-violent exchanges, which are often very funny. Eyre has modernised the text, and in places it is more crass than its parent, allowing the characters to lose their dignity with one another linguistically as well as in temper and conduct. Bringing Kurt into their world only ups the stakes, and his weakness, along with his utter bemusement, are well presented in this trio of strong performances.
Yet the overt comic choices are a little unsatisfying in this still imperfect marriage of Strindberg and Eyre, losing opportunities for stronger and deeper characterisation along with the real thudding impact this play can produce as it explores wasted lives and the terrible tragedy of living with so much hate. At the Coronet Theatre in 2023, the National Theatre of Norway produced a memorably bleak version that lingers in the memory, and Eyre’s approach feels lacklustre in comparison. The real darkness of having frightened away their children and lost two of them to death, their friends and any real human contact is only lightly touched on, while Kurt’s own pre-corruption, his bad marriage and paternal losses are equally watered down rather than used to make a universal statement about human behaviour and the admitted godlessness of their existence. This Dance of Death is enjoyable without being as mortally terrifying as this play can be.
That said, the performances are excellent. Lisa Dillon’s Alice is all wounded pride and exasperated irritation, desperate for death to give her victory over her husband but still arrogant enough about her former acting career and her beauty to reveal her own monstrosity over time. Will Keen’s excellent Edgar has a wonderfully huffy military bearing, pompous and agitated, demanding and childish, floored only by the regular palpitations that afflict him, while Geoffrey Streatfeild’s Kurt is the sensible straight man who offers the audience a place to put their sympathy as the chaos consumes him too.
Dance of Death is a dark play, but not quite dark enough in this entertaining if ultimately toothless version. Bickering couples can be scary, but facing the ultimate isolation and hopelessness of human existence, the true abandonment of the soul, is what this play really challenges you to accept.
Runs until 7 March 2026
