About the work
Play by August Strindberg, originally titled "Brott och brott" (literally "Crime and Crime"), written in 1899 and first performed on 26 January 1900 at the Dramaten in Stockholm. Strindberg himself labelled it a comedy, though Max Reinhardt treated it as a tragicomedy in his 1902 Berlin production.
Plot
After a celebrated opening night, the playwright Maurice leaves his partner Jeanne and their daughter Marion for the sculptor Henriette. When he secretly wishes the child dead so as to be free, Marion actually dies soon afterward; suspected of her murder, Maurice loses his reputation and friends until his innocence is proven and his artistic standing restored.
Cultural significance
The title alludes to Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and, like that novel, centres on guilt that exists beyond any provable act. The play remains one of Strindberg's most frequently staged later dramas and was filmed several times, including by Ernst Lubitsch in 1919; in German-speaking theatre it is still licensed today under the title "Rausch", among others through Suhrkamp Theater.