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Playing With Fire (Leka med elden) 1892

Written in the same month as Strindberg's divorce from his first wife was finalized,  Playing With Fire (Leka med elden) is a cautionary tale, influenced by French boulevard comedy in tone and structure, but as so often with Strindberg based on his own experiences. The Stockholm archipelago, the quintessential Swedish summer paradise which he knew and loved, gave the setting and the plot. As in French erotic comedy, the plot revolves around fiery encounters and ill-timed intrusions. It is a delicately balanced concoction: if blended with a heavy hand, it fails, as did early productions in both Sweden and Germany. But it is not a farce. Strindberg himself emphasized: "It is a comedy, not a farce, and a very serious comedy, where people hide their tragedy behind a certain cynicism."

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Comrades (Kamraterna) 1886-87

Comrades (Kamraterna) is a witty satire on the emancipation of women and reproof of the modern ideal of the equality of men and women. Still performed, still biting, still timely, this may be Strindberg's play with the most complex birth process. The saga of the modern woman Bertha was begun in 1886 as the 5-act play Marauders (Marodörer), was rewritten as the 4-act Comrades (Kamraterna) in 1886-87, and concluded in 1887 with the famous "prequel" The Father (Fadren). While it was classed with such plays as Ibsen's Doll's House (1879) and Ghosts (1882), and Anne-Charlotte Leffler's True Women (1883)—all of them known to Strindberg—and highly controversial at the time, it is surprising how many of its issues remain burning to this day.