Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
Everyone knows that it's in the kitchen where parties really start
cooking up a storm. So it goes in Miss Julie, August Strindberg's
revolutionary nineteenth century play about the cross-class lust
between the eponymous daughter of the manor and her father's servant,
John, who Julie grew up beside. Zinnie Harris' version may relocate the
action to the post First World War Scottish Highlands in the midst of a
strike among the village workers, but the simmering essence of
Strindberg's original is retained in a brief but fiercely intense
exchange in Dominic Hill's blistering production.
The schism between the two worlds is delineated from the off via the
stark grey interior of Neil Haynes' design that's highlighted even more
by the sickly yellow lighting that contains them. This contrasts
sharply with the party noises off and occasional flashing lights
beyond. It is not Julie we see first, however, but the maid, Christine.
Played with steely resignation by Jessica Hardwick, Christine is here
given more emotional weight by Harris, who makes her a near equal
partner in a three-sided battle.
Once Louise Brealey's Julie wafts into the kitchen in search of some
sense of self-determination beyond privilege, however, Keith Fleming's
John takes full advantage of Julie's needy mix of brattishness and
brittleness. As the pair spar their way in and out of bed,sometimes
with a surprising amount of humour, their fluctuating power games
becomes a verbal extension of their unseen physical tryst.
Both Brealey and Fleming give their all with a pair of performances
possessed with nuanced light and shade in what is ultimately a play
about sex and power, the power of sex and the sexiness of power. In
this case, the class of both parties may be crucial to giving their
liaison a frisson of forbidden fruit, but, behind closed doors, sex is,
or can be, a great leveller too. Judging by the gasps that came from
the front stalls on Saturday night, the final, fateful role-play
between the pair makes Miss Julie as shocking as it ever was.
The Herald, February 10th 2014
ends
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