Kristina

Strindberg’s Kristina (1903) is the unacknowledged basis for the Garbo film “Queen Christina.” This historical drama is a skillful study of the enlightened and complex queen of Sweden who was reared as a man but fought a lifelong struggle to prove that a woman could rule as a king. She ended the Thirty Years War but abdicated amidst financial scandals and the fury over her conversion to Catholicism. In the events leading up to her abdication, she is shown struggling against her old lovers and mentors, putting on ballets to distract from her financial misconduct, fighting against her feminine nature and succumbing to it. Kristina is among the most powerful plays of its kind produced in modern times, with Strindberg revealing the power of his dramatic conceptions and the mastery he had acquired of his craft. Translated from the Swedish by Wendy Weckwerth, directed by Whitney Aronson.