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Strindberg and Baroness Von Essen met in their late 20s. She left her unfaithful husband for the besotted playwright and at first things went well. Strindberg spent a devoted husband and father to their three children. But the union soured when it was rumored that Siri was having affairs with other men and women.
Strindberg wrote to a friend that: “A deceived husband is a comic figure in the eyes of the world, and especially to a theater audience. He must show that he is aware of this, and that he too would laugh if only the man in question were someone other than himself. ”
Strindberg and Siri divorced after almost 15 years. He went on to marry and divorce twice more, but retained an obsession with Siri that he never shook. “It was a kind of addiction,” Duncan says. “He knew her so well and we all have a choice about how we use a deep knowledge of another person – to support or attack them.”
In The Dance of Death the conflict between Edgar and Alice gets rejigged when her cousin, Kurt, enters the scene. “Until Kurt arrives,” says Duncan, “the two monsters can only feed on each other. But when Kurt arrives their diet changes. He’s fresh meat and they’re vampires. “
In Lenkiewicz’s new version, Kurt is a woman, played by Auf Wiedersehn, Pet actress Emily Bruni. “If you’re going to adapt a play like this now, then you want to deliver something different,” says Duncan. “There’s nothing overworked or perverse about making Kurt a woman. The gender switch makes the older couple’s manipulation of that character something different; the power and the competition become more complex and intense. ”
I wonder how it feels for Duncan to perform the role opposite her actual husband, but she’s frustrated by the question. “I know you have to ask this,” she says. “Because this is the world we live in. But I am incredibly private by nature. We’re not a famous couple. And what a shame for people to know about our lives and be distracted from the play by wondering about us. It’s almost like spoiling a bit of the plot.
“This isn’t our life,” she laughs. “If it were then I wouldn’t be talking to you – I’d probably be dead!”
The Dance of Death is at Theater Royal Bath (theater royal.org.uk) until June 4, then touring
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