The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-22

| ~
 death of August Strindberg, whose N play, ''The Father was presented in New York short time ago. giving many Americans their first glimpse of The Shakespeare of Sweden"
 Strindberg, man of prodigious indus try who filled 75 volumes and yet did not ride his genius in that mass of print had the gift not the curse. of versatility. He wrote fairy stories for children, and real ism which won the commendation of Emile Zola, who hailed him as his com rade in arms. Some of his plays were unfit for stage presentation because Of the authors bald discussion of certain phases of life
 | A super in theatres, doctors assistant, a journalist, haunted by poverty and un happy in his relations with women, some times insane enough to be put into an asylum. and several times released as cured" having completed recollection of the details of his incarceration and his hallucinations. Strindberg found plenty | of material for morbid literature with out going beyond his own personal exper- l fences. He married three times and, it seems, the only agreement ever reached between the genius and a wife was his | emicable arrangement with his third that they should separate permanently. The Scandinavian Duse," as the actress Harriet Bosse was called, declared that she needed more liberty than custom al- | lowed a matron, and the electrical at mosphere of the domestic establishment was happily cleared by the thunderbolt. The hearthstone being unencumbered by the presence of Harriet. August sat down and wrote her into a play in which he de- scribed her as a second Messalina, a wild cat, a heartless demon and so forth. | Strindberg belonged to the school of writers whose pens probe souls and who are concerned seriously with causes and effects. He was not interested in cater ing to the tastes of readers who like what they call-because of lack of courage to be frank-"broad' plays and novels | lis painting of life as he saw it was not the pornography of the writers of French novels which pleasingly shock" school girls. His methods as a writer of reai- ism have been compared to those of Ib- sen as revealed in Ghosts. One of his heroines is neurotic young girl whose education and life in society have bred in her desire for excitement that causes her, while engaged to be married to q young man of her social station. to be- come involved with a valet. In the de- nouement Julie pays for the decadence which came to her partly by blood and partly through the influence of asoscia- tions in boarding school. by cutting her throat with a razor. The valet lover gives her the razor when her situation has be- come untenable and but one exit suggests itself Another little drama of catastrophe is about a husband who follows his wife to a seaside resort where she has what she believes to be secret engagement. The husband conceals his presence from his wife, becomes acquainted with his rival and the action leads up to q morgue.
 Some persons have called my tragedy too sad" wrote Strindberg in one of his prefaces. "as though one desired merry tragedy"
 The cheerful theme of "The Father is 1 the destruction of mans brain through the machinations of a maleyolent wife. Strindberg had fought woman personally, across the boards of his own domestic | establishment He pursued her across | those of the theatrical stage with bud geon in one hand and a scalpel in the other. Having fioored her with the fell ing instrument he dissected her-or vivi- sected her--with the surgical instrument
 My superior intelligence revolts against gynolatry," he said in assailing his some wl.a. gloomy neighbor of Norway, Henrik l5sen, for what he called that dramatlst's worship of women
 Strndberg was inconsistent in that he married often, although he attacked the sex continually. But who expects a gen jus. especially a genius who is periodic luratic. to be consistent?
 | Suffragettes would have hated Strind- berg as the arch slanderer of woman, O. pitied him as being quite crazy. if they had read him. In one of his ou;bursts he says:
 o wish to dethrone man. and replace him by Woman to wish to de- throne the master of creation !. gen. orator of great thoughts. and elevate les