(Via Jonathan Slaff.)

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY PRESENTS AUGUST STRINDBERG REP IN

THE AMERICAN PREMIERE OF A NEWLY TRANSLATED PLAY BY AUGUST STRINDBERG

“First Warning,” a comedy, is translated and directed by Robert Greer.

 

WHERE AND WHEN:

Theater for the New City presents the August Strindberg Rep production of “First Warning”

October 2 to 12, 2025 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (at E. 10^th Street)

Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 3:00 PM

Previews October 2-3, opens October 4, runs through October 12 on the following schedule: Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 3:00 PM

$18 general admission, $15 seniors and students.

Box office: www.theaterforthenewcity.net,. (212) 254-1109

Running time: 45 minutes

 

NEW YORK — From October 2 to 12, Theater for the New City will present August Strindberg Rep in the English-language premiere of Strindberg’s little-known “First Warning” (1892),  translated and directed by Robert Greer. The play, Strindberg’s only comedy, explores his fascination with love, jealousy, and the battle of the sexes through a farcical exploration of a stormy marital quarrel.

 

“First Warning,” a semi-autobiographical marital comedy, has never before been produced in English. It offers audiences a glimpse of Strindberg as a provocateur, challenging morality and social convention, and as a craftsman experimenting with new theatrical forms.  It offers a surprising glimpse of Strindberg in a lighter, satirical mood. Known worldwide for the searing naturalism of “Miss Julie” and “The Father,” Strindberg here turns his attention to the follies of marriage, jealousy, and vanity with a comic touch. 

 

In the play, Axel and Olga have been married for fifteen stormy years. For a winter holiday, they have rented rooms in a house in Germany owned by a baroness and her bratty young daughter, Rosa.  Axel–tormented by jealousy–resolves for the umpteenth time to leave Olga. Amid a few rounds of arguments and confessions during his packing, she softens toward him, especially after the offer of a great gift is revealed in the second half of the play.

 

Strindberg subtitled the play “A Comedy.” It centered on Axel’s jealousy toward his much younger wife, her friends, and the gossip surrounding them. Instead of spiraling into murder or despair (as in “The Father”), the situation resolves with irony and reconciliation. The object of the “warning” is Axel’s vanity and insecurity, with Strindberg commenting on generational differences in marriage, the male ego and bourgeois morality. The irksome, nettling young Rosa often serves as the voice of insight and warning in the comedy. She observes the tensions, betrayals, and hidden resentments of the adults around her and interprets them for the audience. Thus she embodies the “warning” of the play’s title: that the sins and failures of parents will resonate in the lives of their children. Strindberg tells us that the children can do something about it.

 

As a parody of contemporary artistic forms and late Victorian mores, “First Warning” is oddly parallel to “The Importance of Being Earnest.”  The two plays premiered the same year at a time when the world first began to appreciate a woman’s possible enjoyment of sexual delight.

 

PRODUCTION HISTORY OF “FIRST WARNING”

The play relates an actual incident from Strindberg’s first marriage, to which he makes reference in his novel “A Fool’s Confession” (written between 1887 and 1888).  Originally titled “Första varningen” in Swedish, it had its world premiere at Residenztheater, Berlin, January 22, 1893, where it was a huge success. It had been accepted but never performed at Sweden’s Royal Theatre (Dramaten) in 1892. The actors boycotted the play after the first reading because they found Rosa’s role immoral. Reviewers thought the same when the play was published by Bonniers in the collection Dramatik in 1893. They were shocked by the erotically experienced and open-hearted Rosa. The play premiered at the Residenztheater in Berlin, on January 22, 1893, under the title “Herbstzeichen” (Signs of Autumn). It was printed in both Germany and Sweden that same year.

 

In Svenska Dagbladet, Hjalmar Sandberg wrote that Rosa was a peculiar role, that her approachability became comical, but also that she seemed too daring yet childish for the stage of development “represented by her nineteen years.” Gustav Fröding expressed a different opinion in Karlstads-Tidningen, describing Rosa as “an eccentric, pompous youngster, portrayed with admirable certainty and truth.”

 

There was a Swedish premiere tour with Julia Håkansson/Olof Hillberg in 1907. When Första varningen was finally staged, it was at Strindberg’s Intima Teatern in Stockholm on September 14, 1910. By now Strindberg was a renowned playwright. Several reviewers were as fascinated by Rosa as Fröding had been seventeen years earlier.

 

In 1913, “Första varningen” was staged again at the Intima Teatern as a prelude to Strindberg’s “Creditors.” Interest was also drawn in this production to the role of “the teenage Rosa, whose precocious love life is laid out for dissection.” (G.B., Svenska Dagbladet)  In 1948, “Första varningen” was staged together with Strindberg’s “Mother Love” on Radio Theatre. The reviewer in Stockholms Tidning was impressed. Maj-Britt Nilsson played Rosa “ruthlessly and juicy.” There was nothing left of the 1890s ingenue, which was completely dated in 1948. Ingemar Bergman was in charge of the direction. Radio Theatre reprised “The First Warning” in 1960, again under Bergman’s direction with Gunnar Björnstrand and Eva Dahlbeck in the lead roles.

 

Research by Robert Greer has detected no previous English language production of this play.  His adaptation sets the play in Switzerland in 1953. He writes, “The play has a once-upon-a-time quality and its characters that of a comic fairytale, reminiscent of an elaborate Swiss clock.”

 

WHO’S WHO IN THE CAST

Natalie Menna plays Olga, Mike Roche plays Axel, Holly O’Brien plays Rosa and Anne Stockton plays the Baroness.  Lighting design is by Alexander Bartenieff. Costume design is by Billy Little. Stage Manager is Jose Ruiz.

 

Natalie Menna has appeared at TNC in lead roles in six Strindberg Rep productions: Julie in “Miss Julie,” Hedda in “Hedda Gabler,” Elise in “Pelican/Isle of the Dead,” Laura in “The Father,” Tekla in “Creditors” and Alice  in “Dance of Death, Parts 1 & 2,” all in new translations by Robert Greer. Last season at TNC, she played Vivien Leigh in “Orson’s Shadow,” written and directed by Austin Pendleton. She is also a playwright; TNC has presented her plays “Hiroshi Me-Me-Me,” “Zen A.M.” and “Occasionally Nothing.”   (www.NatalieMenna.com)

 

Mike Roche has appeared at TNC in Strindberg Rep productions of Miss Julie” (as Jean), “Hedda Gabler ” (as Judge  Brack) and “Creditors”  (as Gustav). Other credits include “Occasionally Nothing” by Natalie Menna (TNC), “The Hook” by Arthur Miller (American premiere at Brave New World Rep), “Night Over Taos” (INTAR, dir. Estelle Parsons), and “Billy the Kid” (Flea Theatre, dir. Jim Simpson). He is a member of Godlight Theatre Company (2010 Drama Desk Award). (www.MikeRoche.net)

 

Holly O’Brien has appeared at TNC in Strindberg Rep productions of “Miss Julie” (as Christine, the cook), “Hiroshi-Me, Me, Me”  and “Occasionally Nothing” by Natalie Menna. She played Belle in “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast” and Goldie in “Two By Two,” directed by Martin Charnin. Other regional credits include “Norma Jean Enlightened,” “The Teffetas,” “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” “The Iceman Cometh,” “The Fantastiks” and “Noises Off.” She sang Glinda in a “Wicked” Broadway concert with the Rockland County Choral Society. (www.HollyEOBrien.com)

 

Anne Stockton has written and performed two solo shows that were directed by Austin Pendleton “The Speed Queen” (based on the novel of the same name by Stewart O’Nan) was performed at NJ Rep, United Solo Festival and  Midtown International Theater Festival (Outstanding Performance in  a Solo Show).   “I Won’t Be In On Monday” was presented at Off the Wall Theater and United Solo Festival  (Best One-Woman Drama). She has appeared OOB at HERE, Playwrights Horizons and Cubiculo among others, and has appeared on-camera in CBS’s “Blue Bloods” (co-star) and the films “Silent Partner” (co-star) and “But” (lead), among others. In her “day job,” she is an MD/Psychiatrist and has been an actor/trainer for the NYPD Hostage Negotiation Team and Emergency Service Unit.

 

Robert Greer (translator/director) is Artistic Director of August Strindberg Rep, which is a resident company of TNC. He has staged twenty Strindberg productions with the company to-date as well as English-language premières of contemporary Scandinavian playwrights, including Denmark’s Stig Dalager; Sweden’s Kristina Lugn, Marianne Goldman, Helena Sigander, Cecilia Sidenbladh, Hans Hederberg, Oravsky and Larsen, and Margareta Garpe; and Norway’s Edvard Rønning. He has also directed classics by Henrik Ibsen, Victoria Benedictsson, Laura Kieler, Anne Charlotte Leffler, and Amalie Skram. His productions have been presented at the Strindberg Museum and Strindberg Festival, Stockholm; Edinburgh and NY Fringe Festivals; Barnard College, Columbia University, Rutgers, and UCLA; Miranda, Pulse and Theater Row Theaters, La MaMa, Manhattan Theatre Source, Tribeca Lab, Synchronicity, TSI, and BargeMusic in NY; and The Duplex in LA. He has directed plays by Mario Fratti, Sartre and Corneille here in New York. He is a member of SDC, AEA and Swedish Translators in North America.

 

August Strindberg Repertory Theatre, under the direction of Robert Greer, is committed to productions of Nordic plays in new translations and interpretations that illuminate the works for today’s American audience. That is why TNC has taken this repertory into its family. Mr. Greer writes, “Strindberg Rep is deeply grateful to Crystal Field for having made us a resident company. Ms. Field’s support of new plays (and plays newly translated) has been a godsend to us. Her knowledge and experience of theater is a beacon guiding us and her unflagging devotion to the art of the drama and its artists is a role model for leaders of all cultural institutions.” (https://Strindbergrep.com)

Art: Edvard Munch

 

 

(via John Wyszniewski at Blake Zidell & Associates; Ofarim is not involved in the new production.)

Tony-Nominee Austin Pendleton Directs First New York Revival in 35 Years

The Pearl Theatre Company presents
A Taste of Honey 
By Shelagh Delaney
Directed by Austin Pendleton

Preview Performances: September 6, 8, 13–15 at 7pm; 7, 11, 17 at 2pm; 9, 10, 16, 17 at 8pm
Opening Night: Sunday, September 18 at 7pm
Regular Performances: September 20, 22, October 3, 4, 10, 12, 13, 16 at 7pm; 21, 24, October 2 at 2pm; September 23, 24 at 8pm

The Pearl Theatre (555 West 42nd Street)
$59 regular, $79 premium ($49 previews, $40 members, $20 Student Rush)
pearltheatre.org; 212.563.9261
2 hours and 15 minutes with one intermission

The Pearl Theatre Company is pleased to present A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney. Directed by Tony-nominee Austin Pendleton, the production, running September 6–October 16, marks the first Off-Broadway revival of this landmark play in 35 years.

Delaney rocked the theater world when, at 18, she wrote a play that both defined and defied her generation. A Taste of Honey is the clever, passionate, and poignant story of a young woman facing an uncertain future in a hostile world—and learning to trust that love, in its every heartbreaking and messy form, will see her through.

Director Pendleton said, “When I saw A Taste of Honey, on Broadway, I was unmoored.  I'd never seen anything like it.  The energy of this play is absolutely unique. It's so buoyant, and it's so frightening, it's so funny, it's so dark, and it seems to have been written in one joyous, troubled exhalation.  I'm so happy the Pearl has asked me to take this on.”

The Pearl’s Artistic Director Hal Brooks said, “All of us at The Pearl, and all of us in New York Theater are grateful to have Austin back in our fold. Like his work past work at The Pearl, (William's Vieux Carre and Hellmann's Toys In the Attic), I expect Austin will bring incredible sensitivity and nuance to each character and each actors' performance. Austin has a strong personal connection to A Taste of Honey and I know the production will be at once honest to the original as well as inventive and richly textured.”

The cast of Taste of Honey features Rebekah Brockman as Jo, John Evans Reese as Geoff; Rachel Botchan as Helen, Bradford Cover as Peter, and Ade Otukoya as Jimmie.The creative team includes Harry Feiner (sets), Barbara A. Bell (costumes), Eric Southern (lights), Jane Shaw (sound) and April Ann Kline (production stage manager).

Performances of A Taste of Honey will take place September 6 – October 16 at The Pearl Theatre (555 West 42nd Street, NYC). Critics are welcome as of September 14 for an official opening on Sunday, September 18. Tickets are $59 regular, $79 premium ($49 previews, $20 Student Rush) and can be purchased by visiting pearltheatre.org or calling 212.563.9261.

Austin Pendleton (Director) is currently represented in New York by the Mint Theatre production of A Day By the Sea, at Theatre Row.  His other recent productions as a director in New York include Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Giurgiu, Hamlet with Peter Sarsgaard at CSC, where he also directed three Chekhov plays (Ivanov, Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya), Nora at Cherry Lane and Orpheus Descending at St. John's Lutheran Church in the West Village.  He has also directed, in New York, The Little Foxes with Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton, Spoils of War by Michael Weller with Kate Nelligan, and Shelter, a musical by Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford, all Broadway shows, all Tony-nominated.  As an actor he has worked on and Off and Off-off Broadway, including such recent appearances at the Public Theatre as Straight White Men, written and directed by Young Jean Lee, Mother Courage with Meryl Streep, and Romeo and Juliet with Oscar Isaac and Lauren Ambrose.  He apprenticed, acted and directed extensively at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and is a member of the Ensemble at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre.  He has written three plays (Orson's Shadow, Uncle Bob, and Booth), all published and all produced in New York and around the country and, in the case of Uncle Bob, internationally.  He has acted in over 200 movies and in many TV shows, most often in Oz, Homicide, and Law & Order.  He teaches acting at HB Studio, in New York.

Shelagh Delaney (Playwright, 1938 – 2011) was a British playwright and screenwriter. She is best known for her debut work A Taste of Honey, which premiered at the Theatre Workshop in 1958, when Delaney was only nineteen, and later opened on the West End in 1959. Joan Plowright won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Jo in the original Broadway production, which also featured Angela Lansbury as her mother and ran for over 300 performances. The play, set in Delaney's native Salford, an industrial neighbor of Manchester, was inspired by a dislike for Terence Rattigan's genteel Variation on a Theme. Though Delaney was often grouped by critics with the “angry young men” like John Osborne and Alan Stillitoe who were challenging the traditional reserve and gentility of British high culture that Rattigan epitomized, she insisted that the comparison overlooked those writers' individual styles and that her writing was motivated not by anger but honesty. She wrote, she said, to record life as she saw it in urban Northern England, where “people are not usually shown as they are. For in actual fact they are very alive and cynical. I write as people talk.” Delaney followed A Taste of Honey with another portrayal of working class life in the play The Lion in Love, which did not achieve the former's critical acclaim. She subsequently published a well-received collection of short stories, Sweetly Sings the Donkey(1963), and several screenplays – including The White Bus and Charlie Bubbles (1967) and Dance with a Stranger (1985) – and radio plays – including Tell Me a Film (2003) and Country Life (2004). Her screenplay for the 1961 film adaption of A Taste of Honey, which she co-wrote with director Tony Richardson, won the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay and the Writer's Guild of Great Britain Award in 1962. Delaney was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985.

 

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(Emma Brockes’s article appeared in the New Yorker, 11/10.)

One afternoon in early October, Hugh Jackman strode around a rehearsal space near Times Square, dressed in black and with a scabbard on his hip. The knife in the scabbard was intended for a fish, which, every night from November 16th onward, Jackman will gut, fillet, and season onstage in Jez Butterworth’s new play, “The River.” Part of Jackman’s rightness for the role, Butterworth told me, is his understanding that the sea trout is in some ways the star. “He gets it.”

“The River” can be a tough play to get. It opened in London two years ago, for a limited run at the tiny ninety-seat theatre upstairs at the Royal Court, and is transferring to Broadway’s Circle in the Square, with the role that was played in London by Dominic West now filled by Jackman—“the biggest Broadway star in one of the smallest Broadway theatres,” Butterworth said. This marks a conscious downsizing from his last play, “Jerusalem,” first produced in 2009, and a huge hit. “The River” is a different beast: eighty minutes to “Jerusalem” ’s three hours and contemplative where the earlier play was raucous, turning on the intimacies of a couple rather than the carnival-like energy of a cast of fourteen. The first time I met Butterworth, in New York in the middle of the summer, it was in one of his natural environments, a cool, dark pub, which he entered, on a blazing hot day, wearing an unseasonably warm coat and a gray porkpie hat, with the shambling gait of a man on home turf. He ordered a pint of Guinness and removed his hat, revealing a jagged crest of dark hair streaked with silver, which, along with his black-and-white beard, gave him the look of an affable but vaguely diffident badger. (Butterworth finds the word “badger” hilarious; it crops up all over his plays. In “The Winterling,” for example: “I’m here to tell you, the badger bears a grudge.”)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/nothing-2