Strindberg's "The Ghost Sonata." by Egil Törnqvist (review)

144 REVIEWS Tornqvist points the way to a weightier critical study and by doing so gives ample evidence of his own capacity to produce one. For now, however, he proffers a useful international survey, ranging from a racially pOlent South African Miss Julie to a serialized Swedish version of The Wild Duck. It is fascinating to Jearn of such innovations, even as the larger issues await fuller and more meaningful ex.plication. EGIL TORNQVIST. Strindberg's "The Ghost Sonata." Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000. Pp. 269, illustrated. $45.00 (Pb). Reviewed by Robert F. Gross, Hobart and William Smith Colleges At the beginning of The Ghost Sonata, the student Arkenholz views the apparently secure fa~ade of a prosperous house with admiration, only to discover by the conclusion that the house is filled with unsettling anomalies and imperfections . I am left with a similar feeling aner reading this volume devoled to the most canonical of Strindberg's chamber plays. Egil Tornqvist has assembled a work of immense value to students, literary critics, theatre historians, and practitioners, covering the play from its origins through to a careful reading of the text, a study of English translations, and a history of major productions on stage, television, and radio, and ending with an overview of the work's influence on the modern theatre. It is both an accessible introduction for the novice and a rich reference for the Strindberg scholar, and it deserves a place in every theatre library. Parts of the book have appeared in five previous sources, most notably Tornqvist's [973 Bergman och Strindherg, which focuses on Ingmar Bergman 's [973 production at the Dramaten, a production that also dominates this volume. Not only is nearly a third of the book devoted to Bergman's four productions of The Ghost Sonata, but most of that third documents the 1973 staging , including a detailed transcription of the production, fourteen photographs, a short rehearsal diary, and a "configuration chart" or French scene breakdown . If only for this careful documentation of a fascinating production by a major director, Strindherg' s "The Ghost Sonata" deserves high praise. And yet the more one contemplates the book, the more disconcerting it appears. Strindberg referred in a letter to his chamber plays as "mosaic work" (rI), and this volume increasingly appears as a mosaic as one peruses it. The painstaking attention given to Strindberg's text and Bergman's [973 production seem oddly proportioned when viewed against the remaining, often sketchy material. Neither the book nor individual chapters are unified by clearly articulated theses. Transitions are often abrupt or non-existent; chapters , like that on Strindberg's text, sometimes break off rather than conclude. Reviews 145 The brief final chapter on influences seems cursory, and the appended list of productions is particularly uneven. While entries on some productions specify director, designer, and leading actors and provide brief but useful descriptive notes, others are far less helpful. What is one to make of the isolated claim of the reviewer of a 1989 production that "the play is a disaster" (237)? Or of the entry on the 1977 Yale Repertory Theatre production, which refers the reader to two reviews but offers neither credits nor description? Although this appendix serves the purpose of opening up opportunities for further research, it also suggests a researcher's fragmentary notes on an uncompleted project, not yet quite suited for publication. The greatest sense of disproportion, however, results from the difference between Tornqvist's work as a literary critic and his work as a theatre historian. His meticulous reading of Strindberg's play presents it as a highly unified and coherent text in which minute details carry great, and mutually reinforcing, significances . He relies extensively on Strindberg's notes, correspondence, and passages in A Bille Book to elucidate and unify aspects of the play, presenting the expression of a single "fundamental idea" of life as a fall into suffering that is only alleviated by death (25). For example, Tornqvist uses a note of Strindberg 's to equate the statue of the young Mummy with a prelapsarian Eve, "a Paradisiac" vision (5 [) that contrasts strongly with imagery of moral and physical degeneration. But aperusal of...