Dance of Death review – spark and mischief as humorously horrible couple wish each other dead

2026-02-08 - 16:15

Orange Tree theatre, London Richard Eyre’s adaptation brings comedy and tenderness alongside Strindberg’s original savagery August Strindberg’s portrait of marriage is unremittingly bleak in Dance of Death. It features the kind of couple who find their partner’s way of breathing offensive – or just that the other is still breathing. She wishes him dead, he pretends to rise above it but is biding his time. They seem to exist on co-dependent hate, not love. So if in bleakest British mid-winter this Nordic blast of nihilism seems too chilly a prospect to sit through, there is a surprise afoot: Richard Eyre’s candescent adaptation brings comedy and tenderness alongside the savagery. Strindberg’s couple is turned from merely horrible to humorously, movingly, horrible. Continue reading...