Dream Play

A Dream Play Review Both the plot of the play and the author’s personal experience successfully demonstrate that the theme of the play is the sin of human existence. First, the theme is illustrated by Agnes’s gradual recognition of humanity. Agnes respectively gets in touch with different people including the Officer, the Lawyer, the Doorkeeper and the Poet. These characters represent their different social roles, which collectively create the symbol of humanity. As Agnes gradually understands these people, she accepts the truth that humanity’s reality is the endless repetition of “duty and sin and guilt” (Nectoux). Second, Strindberg weaved his own life experiences into the play. According to the director’s note, Strindberg’s dream of marital happiness was momentarily crushed when his wife left home forever. The play was written in the autumn of 1901, after Strindberg suffered being alone for forty days (Hedström). Because of Strindberg’s unfortunate experiences, he regarded his nightmarish vision of humankind’s plight as real life and reached the conclusion that human existence is evil. The production of A Dream Play directed by David Hanzal successfully communicates the theme of the play by using fantastic music and lighting. Since the theme of the play is the sin of human existence, many moments require actors to portray anguish and torment to show the difficulty of being human. The production uses low and deep background music and dark red lighting effects to brilliantly create a hopeless and creepy atmosphere for these bleak moments, which vastly promotes the theme. Alyssa Perry, who portrayed the main character Agnes, effectively promoted the communication of the theme by gradually changing her actions to become more animated. In order to reveal human existence as evil, Agnes’s action is to personally experience the feeling of being a human. The closer Agnes gets to being a human, the more real experience she has. Therefore, Perry adjusted her