August Strindberg’s “The Dance of Death,” now at the Steppenwolf Theatre, is a portrait of marriage as a hellscape from which the only possible relief is death. Ideally of the other party. An ideal date-night show, you might say. Strindberg, a prolific Swedish author who penned this work in 19 00 as one of about 60, was ground zero for Scandinavian noir. I’m a fan of that moody genre; the likes of TV shows “The Bridge” and “Before We Die” helped get me through COVID. Just as importantly, Strindberg’s plays (the most famous of which is “Miss Julie”) proved highly influential on many 20th century playwrights. Indeed, you can see echoes in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and in the great plays of Conor McPherson, whose sharp-edged 2012 adaptation of “The Dance of Death” is being used here by Steppenwolf in its new production directed by Yasen Peyankov and starring the distinguished crew of co-founder Jeff Perry and ensemble members Kathryn Erbe (returning to a Chicago stage after a long absence) and Cliff Chamberlain. The marriage in question here is between the ailing Edgar (Perry), an unpopular captain in the Swedish coast artillery, and his wife Alice (Erbe), a former actress consumed by regret. The pair lives on an isolated island in a converted prison, rendered in full coastal gothic mode at Steppenwolf by the set designer Collette Pollard, who makes fine use of the theater’s soaring vertical height. (One pro tip in this play for any newlyweds is that a healthy marriage probably best avoids a location where “corpses are screaming in the walls,” as Alice vividly puts it.) The pair has been married for a long time. The first part of the play reveals their pent-up hatred for each other, especially Alice’s for Edgar, but also a glimmer of the sense that they have survived in their boring mutual antipathy by playing games, verbal and actual, some benign, some cruel. You can see the ancestry of George and Martha, or Samuel Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, or even the cursed folk of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.” Then a third party enters the fray: Alice’s former friend and cousin, Kurt (Chamberlain), a bearded symbol of what might still be for Alice minus Edgar, but who ends up being little more than a pawn in their toxic, psychological games. “The Dance of Death” is a very difficult and complicated show to stage. It needs a balance between a tragic sensibility (it manifests the very real horror of coming to the end of your life in the company of someone you despise, and who despises you right back) and the black comedy of the condition of aging. It explores the difficulty of all very long-term relationships. And it observes the human capacity for either the tolerance or the denial of the inevitable, depending on your point of view. We all have to pass the time whatever our circumstances and this pair, at least, is capable of vivid if spluttering conversation. They are not sinking into the quagmire in silence. For the show to work, an audience has to care about this central pair, even like them a little at times, since they are a bit like us. And they have to be entertaining in their misery. We’re sitting with them for two and a half hours, after all. Peyankov’s production has its potent moments, for sure. And these are very skilled actors, all three. (It’s very good to see Erbe come back.) But I don’t think the uneven show really worked on opening night, for several reasons.  One is that it is insufficiently sharp and distinct in terms of how it shifts from fun and games to horrifying depravity; when the characters turn on their dimes, as they often do, we should be more shocked. Another is that it does not always feel like Erbe (who is playing more of a smooth, naturalistic sensibility) and Perry (who is emphasizing an absurdist character style with an intentionally jittery rhythm) are in the same play. Cliff Chamberlain, Kathryn Erbe and Jeff Perry in "The Dance of Death" at Steppenwolf Theatre. (Michael Brosilow) Both ideas could work, it seems to me, and both of these fine actors could do both of these styles, but Peyankov needed to pick more of a lane. The third issue, attached to the first two, is that the audience is not fully emotionally engaged in the fate of this pair and their third-wheel in their road to death. They’re interesting throughout, but overall they’re not empathetic enough and so the ending, intended to be moving, does not feel fully earned. A few too many scenes are played more for laughs than for reality.  Tempting, for sure, but this is also supposed to be a truthful gavotte to the grave. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. [email protected] Review: “The Dance of Death” (2.5 stars) When: Through March 22 Where: Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes Tickets: $20-$140 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org ...read more read less