Mind games in a relationship

Strindberg East and West: play premieres in NYC this Friday, May 18, the Cutting Ball Theater's series in SFO continues and a Strindberg Film Festival in LA. 

• 

  Elizabeth Flax, Jaleesa Capri, Nathan James, Toccarra Cash, and James Edward Becton. Photo: Jonathan Slaff

• This year marks the centennial of Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s death, and one way to celebrate, is by checking out his work “Playing With Fire”, directed by Robert Greer with a cast from the Negro Ensemble Company. The play will premiere this Friday, May 18, and run through June 10 at The New School for Drama on 151 Bank Street in New York City (located between Washington Street and 9th Avenue).

• 

  Jaleesa Capri in the front, Nathan James behind her, Elizabeth Flax, Jolie Garrett, Toccarra Cash, and James Edward Becton. Photo: Jonathan Slaff (Image from the earlier production "Playing with Fire")

• In California, a A Film Festival of sorts has been arranged in Los Angeles by The August Strindberg Society of Los Angeles - Strindberg & Cinema - and in San Francisco, The Cutting Ball Theater is continuing its Strindberg series with the play, "The Keys to Heaven" on May 20.

• The play in New York offers a tight cast of superb actors who throw themselves into one of Strindberg’s rare comedies – a production well worth the price of admission. Says one of the actors, Toccarra Cash, about the play: “I would describe it as ‘The Young and the Restless’, the soap-opera, because that is precisely what the characters are like...just less ‘soapy’. I also tend to think of it as a tragicomedy because while it is very funny, there's definitely an element of tragedy present.”

• Read our review from one of the later rehearsals here: August Strindberg’s “Playing With Fire” in New York

• Lots of Swedish photography is also on view in New York, check our events, at www.nordstjernan.com/calendar/