During the past two decades, The Dance of Death, Strindberg's long and taxing family drama, has come to be considered his masterpiece. Produced by major companies in New York and London, filmed once with Erich von Stroheim and then with Sir Laurence Olivier in the lead, adapted by Friedrich Dürrenmatt as Play Strindberg, and a direct influence on Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Dance of Death has established itself as one of the key works of the modern theater.