After the Rehearsal


After the Rehearsal is a television film, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1984. The script contains numerous quotes from Strindberg's A Dream Play. The film was screened out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot summary

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Strindberg's A Dream Play. She talks of her hatred for her mother, an alcoholic actress who was Vogler's star and lover. Vogler falls into a reverie, remembering a day Anna's mother, Rakel, late in life, came after rehearsal to beg him to come to her apartment. He awakes and Anna reveals the reason she has returned: she jolts him into an emotional response, rare for him, and the feelings of a young woman and an older man play out.

Cast

Reception

After the Rehearsal received strongly positive reviews from critics, garnering a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Vincent Canby wrote that it "may well be another Bergman classic." Roger Ebert gave it a full four stars and argued that the work "consists of unadorned surfaces concealing fathomless depths."