The Ghost Sonata

The first thing I did with this play was make a chart of all the characters and how they were related. That didn't actually illuminate much. Everyone is connected with everyone, but it doesn't really matter. In the end it comes down to two people and a third who's introduced in the third scene.

Technically speaking, that's rather bad form Mr. Strindberg.

Which got me thinking that maybe it's not bad form. The cook is Hummel, that seems logical. Then we've actually known the character since the beginning of the play. I wonder if all of the characters reproduce themselves. That way there's really only three, maybe two characters in the whole thing. Very neat.

I think there's a lot of commentary about how to be alive. Or how not to be alive. Lots of people seem in various forms of death or incapacitation. Hummel in the wheelchair and on crutches, the Mummy bound by the wrappings (I think, I'm taking Mummy literally) and locked in the closet, the dead consul. The only person who is still alive is the Student, but he even seems to be succumbing to the lifelessness of the rest of the characters. I wonder if Strindberg meant this play as a gloomy forecast on the state of the world or a warning to the next generation.

But really, Mr. Strindberg, the milkmaid's just sloppy. She's totally a lose end. You're supposed to wrap those up. Is she the girl Hummel lured out on the ice? You could do better with that.