The Father

August Strindberg's gripping psychological drama about the battle of the sexes, in a version by Mike Poulton.

Strindberg's play The Father is about a marriage wrecked by the parents' need to claim exclusive rights to their daughter's love, and to determine her future. By turns comic and deeply tragic, it shows an affable, scholarly father fall victim to a once loving wife who will stop at nothing to do what she thinks is right for her child.

The only possible outcome is a grim, yet thrilling fight to the death in circumstances of almost unbearable tension.

Written in 1887, The Father was first staged in Berlin in 1890. This English version by Mike Poulton was first staged at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2006.