About the work
Three-part Expressionist station drama by August Strindberg, originally titled "Till Damaskus". The first two parts were written in 1898 and the third only in 1904; the first part premiered on 19 November 1900 at the Dramaten in Stockholm. With this work Strindberg broke from his naturalistic period toward a dreamlike, symbolist dramatic form.
Plot
A nameless, godless writer known only as "the Unknown" wanders through a sequence of dreamlike stations after a failed escape with a woman, encountering a beggar and a doppelgänger figure, and undergoing collapse and temporary healing in a monastery. Repeatedly overtaken by renewed arrogance, he ultimately seeks a monastic life of renunciation.
Cultural significance
Swiss critic Bernhard Diebold called "To Damascus" the "mother cell of Expressionist drama", since its dissolved characters and dreamlike sequence of stations anticipated the formal principles of Expressionist theatre. Because of its length and complexity, German-language theatres mostly stage the trilogy in excerpts or as individual parts, among others through the Suhrkamp Theater stage-rights catalogue.