The Serious Game

Though Ingmar Bergman became famous as a filmmaker, his roots-and, to some extent, his heart-were in the theater. He directed more than one hundred plays in his career, and The Serious Game takes a close look at fourteen productions he staged at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Looking closely at the relationship between the verbal and the visual, this book gives even longtime Bergman fans a new understanding of his sensitivity to nuance, his versatility, and his dedication to craftsmanship.

Egil Törnqvist (19.12.1932 - 9.3.2015) was professor emeritus of Scandinavian studies at the University of Amsterdam, author of Drama as Text and Performance, and a leading Strindberg and Bergman scholar. In 2004, he received the renowned Strindberg Prize.

Preface, 1. B & Co., 2. William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3. August Strindberg, Miss Julie, 4. August Strindberg, A Dream Play, 5. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 6. Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night, 7. Yukio Mishima, Madame de Sade, 8. Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House, 9. Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt, 10. William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, 11. J.B.P. Molière, The Misanthrope, 12. Euripides, The Bacchae, 13. August Strindberg, The Ghost Sonata, 14. Friedrich von Schiller, Mary Stuart, 15. Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts, 16. The Serious Game, Production Data, Bibliography, DVD list, Index