Ironically, this coda to Bergman's career (in cinema) received some of the best reviews of any of his films. Andrew Sarris called it "one of Bergman's greatest films. He has attained a sublimity of self-revelation in this masterpiece such as few artists have achieved in any medium." Richard Corliss (Time Magazine) said it was "as direct, serene and human as any he has made." A spare, pellucid work featuring three actors in one set, After the Rehearsal is a far-reaching meditation on life and theater and the connections between the two. Erland Josephson plays a theater director who is rehearsing Strindberg's A Dream Play; Ingrid Thulin, his former star, now a ravaged alcoholic who has been assigned a small role; and Lena Olin, the ambitious young female lead. The solitary musings and incendiary encounters of these characters illuminate a world which Bergman both loves and fears: that of the bare stage.-James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario