Strindberg's playdealt with an unhappy marriage in which a couple's only daughter becomes a wedgeand a weapon. Sjöberg regenerated the play, using the cast from his stagedversion at the Royal Dramatic Theater, and techniques familiar from Miss Julie.Georg Rydeberg plays the father, "The Captain," an officer, scientist,and representative in the shared world of Strindberg and Sjöberg of thepatriarchal system. Gunnel Lindblom is his wife, Laura, whose corresponding lackof social status is compensated for with an arsenal of psychological armaments.The Captain, an atheist whose only hope for immortality lies in his daughter, isslowly driven mad by his wife's insinuations that he is not the child's father.Sjöberg's Strindberg adaptations draw their strength from the director'sview of Strindberg as a prophet who framed today's problems well ahead of histime: at the core of The Father is an interplay of racial hatred, contempt forwomen, and the masculine superman complex.