Long before the term "prestige television" was coined, influential Swedish filmmaker Inmar Bergman made a provocative miniseries which captured the imaginations of audiences across the world and is said to have even led to rising divorce rates in Sweden. (Although to be fair, it was 1973 and women's liberation was in a pretty significant growth phase.)
Now Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage is coming to the Sydney Opera House in this production by the Royal Danish Theatre. It will be performed in Danish, with English surtitles, and stars, direct from Denmark, Stine Stengade and Morten Kirkskov, who both appeared in the TV series Borgen.
Bergman's TV series was adapted into a film in the year following its release and has been on stage several times since then. It tells the story of Marianne and Johan, a couple in a seemingly perfect marriage which disintegrates across ten years.
But even if you know the TV series back-to-front, there's a significant twist to this version: the roles have been flipped so that it's now Marianne who leaves Johan and the kids for a younger partner.