Dance of Death

by August Strindberg

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 4 March 2026

Richard Eyre adapted Strindberg's bleak play Dance of Death and directs Will Keen as Edgar, Lisa Dillon as his wife Alice and Geoffrey Streatfeild as Kurt her cousin in an intense and yet at times darkly comic production.

Edgar and Alice have been married for almost twenty-five years; he is a captain on an island which is enduring quarantine due to an epidemic (in this version, the 1918/19 flu epidemic, though the play was written in 1900, and in the original the couple's social isolation is entirely of their own making). The marriage is miserable, though one senses a weary sort of camaraderie beneath the constant sniping and bickering. It's all very well playing games of that sort (and it has become a sturdy theatrical tradition with echoes in the work of Albee, Pinter and others), but there is always a risk of overplaying one's hand, or of losing control due to unforeseen circumstances.

Cue the arrival of Kurt, whom Edgar purports to hold responsible for "trapping" him into marrying Alice, and who is uneasily drawn into the toxic atmosphere through sympathising with his cousin, unaware that his own now dissolved marriage has also been contaminated by Edgar's meddling. And furthermore, Edgar is actually unwell, though it is hard to tell whether he is using his illness as ammunition, or is genuinely running the risk of incapacitation. In this production Will Keen gives a mesmeric performance of draining physicality as he spasms with heart failure and veers between fighting for control with all his military experience of fierce disciple, and succumbing to the terror of dying. His grunts and facial tics are astonishing manifestations of years of repression as much as of physical decline, and it turns out to be foolish of Alice to imagine that now is the time to gain the upper hand.

Lisa Dillon's Alice, fluttering with self-deprecation but usually able to hold her own, exhibits mounting desperation while at the same time revealing a morbid dependence. At one level this is the classic dilemma of the victim of an abusive relationship, but paradoxically here she remains unbowed and in a strange way unbeaten. Kurt's stolid diffidence finally fails to protect him from the fireworks, but after he has left Alice and Edgar are still contemplating their approaching silver wedding anniversary.

At such close quarters the play could have been stultifying and melodramatic, but in the hands of these actors, and with Richard Eyre's inspired realisation that there is a disquieting vein of comedy running through the misery, it was thrilling to watch and horribly fascinating.