She meets about 40 characters, some of them having a clearly symbolical value (such as four deans representing theology, philosophy, medicine, and law) and is herself enmeshed in a wrenching marriage.

The use of a dream to represent a setting in a theatrical work appealed to the traditionally realist author in that Strindberg expresses realistic concerns such as materialism, class struggle, gender role struggle, and the destruction of traditional marriage in (as stated in the preface) "the disconnected but apparently logical form of a dream.

At the play's end, it burns, revealing a wall of suffering and despairing faces, then blossoms at its top in a huge chrysanthemum.

A description of the play's style can be found in Strindberg's prefatory note:The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge.

He does not judge or acquit, he merely relates; and because a dream is usually painful rather than pleasant, a tone of melancholy and compassion for all living creatures permeates the rambling narrative.

[2]:12The play itself does not center around a single well-defined individual, but rather simply follows someone who seems to be a combination of different professional men, all confused.

The play, called by Strindberg "the child of my greatest pain," reflects the author's observation that life is an illusion, similar to a dream.

First staged in 1921 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm,[7]:38 later that year he mounted a more famous production at Berlin's Deutsches Theater.

Handed Strindberg’s playscript, and concluding the film, Helena reads aloud to her grandson, Alexander: “Everything can happen.

On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns.” An edited version by Caryl Churchill[13] was staged at the National Theatre in London in 2005.