Crime & Crime: A Comedy in Four Acts

Written by August Strindberg

Narrated by Brendan Moir

Playwright Maurice is on the very verge of having success and notoriety upon the opening of his new play. In fact, he's so elated at his future prospects that he's decided to propose to his mistress, Jeanne once the evening is over. However, he comes into contact with a femme fatale named Henriette, who so beguiles him with danger and mystery that he doesn't attend his own show and instead spends the entire night with her, forgetting all about his mistress and child. Word spreads throughout France the following morning, and the public utterly shames the impromptu couple for spending the night together, causing the theater to pull Maurice's play, Jeanne to leave Maurice, and Henriette to scheme upon the molding of this now contemptible beast for her own means....

Come see the consequences of actions and the impact of societal expectations in this strange yet unwavering comedy known as "Crime and Crime."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bemuse
• Release date: Jun 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798882342752

August Strindberg

Renowned Swedish writer, playwright and painter August Strindberg is known as one of the fathers of modern theatre. Born in Sweden in 1849, August Strindberg was raised in poverty. A multi-faceted artist given to extremes, he battled depression and emotional turmoils throughout his life. Strindberg was actively involved in the trade union movement and was especially admired by the working class of his time as a radical writer who zealously attacked social ills and hypocrisies in his work. After Strindberg was overlooked by the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize for literature in 1909, a grass-roots petition campaign was launched in protest, which resulted in a large sum of money raised to compensate the cherished writer. Strindberg’s early plays were written in the Naturalistic style, the best known of which is Miss Julie, one of the most studied and performed dramas in the world to this day. When he broke with Naturalism, the versatile Strindberg found equal success in producing works informed by Symbolism. He proceeded to become one of the pioneers of the modern European stage and Expressionism. Strindberg’s most engaging dramas deal with the constant and consuming battle for power between the sexes, bound together in perverse and complex relationships in which desire is mingled with scorn, and negotiated within the strictures imposed on class and gender roles by social conventions. Strindberg continued to write of the alienated modern man, who is desperate and alone in a forsaken universe, until his death in 1912.