Playing With Fire June 28, 2012

This is an all-black adaptation of August Strindberg's comedy. It is the inaugural production of The August Strindberg Repertory Theatre, directed by Robert Greer. One of Strindberg's rare comedies, 'Playing With Fire,' has been transported by Leslie Lee from its original 1893 Swedish summer house setting to a 1926 summer cottage of members of the black social elite in a neighborhood of Martha's Vineyard. In the play, Axel, a writer, visits his friends, Kerstin and Knut where they live with and off of his mother, who constantly indulges in gossip, and his father, a wealthy retired businessman who lusts after Knut's mistress, his younger, poorer cousin, Adele. Meanwhile, both Adele and Kerstin have their sights set on Axel. Sparks fly as the characters contest for power over each other in a dynamic 90 minutes of comic drama.