AFTER MISS JULIE To 24 October.
Salisbury.
AFTER MISS JULIE
by Patrick Marber.
Salisbury Playhouse To 24 October 2009.
Mon-Weds 7.30pm Thu-Sat 8pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30 pm.
Audio-described 22 Oct 2.30pm & 8 pm.
BSL Signed 21 Oct.
Post-show Discussion 20 Oct.
Theatre day 15 Oct 11.30 am.
Runs 1hr 25min No interval.
Tickets: 01722 320333.
www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review: Mark Courtice 2 October.
A steamy summer night – still politically hot.
Written in 1888, Strindberg's Miss Julie always seemed modern as it explores sex and power on the midsummer night when Miss Julie comes into the kitchen in pursuit of manservant Jean. So the notion of Patrick Marber updating it to the night of the 1945 election appears pretty redundant.
Actually it works well - partly because of the quality of the writing, and partly because the mix of the personal and political inherent in the original becomes clearer. Labour's victory was the culmination of a disruption of a social order prefigured on Strindberg's 19th-century steamy summer night.
Tom Daley's production is better at the power than the passion. This is mainly because of Lucinda Millward's Julie. Coltish and capricious, her dalliance with Jean isn’t passion, it’s control; by the time she’s lost her virginity to him, she’s also lost the upper hand, much more significant for her. There are blood sweat and tears here, but it’s coolly done - all a bit neat and tidy.
In the preface to Miss Julie Strindberg dreamed of a set solid enough for doors to be slammed without the whole thing shaking. Well, he'd love this one; in Tom Scutt's basement kitchen, with light slanting in from windows high on the walls, the details are perfect, and it's big enough to be a world of its own, so Julie's arrival is an invasion.
Christopher Harper's Jean is meticulously observed. He gets the bravado, and lets us see how thin the act is. At each check to his greedy fantasies, his head bows and his body stiffens as he reverts to servant mode. When he tidies up after Julie's gone it's less hiding the evidence than trying to restore some sense of order to a shattered life.
Christine, the other servant and Jean's on-off lover, is a pivotal role. She opens the play waiting for him to come home, and her acceptance that she'll always get second best counterpoints his fantasies. Caroline Faber plays her low-key, sometimes to the point of being hard to hear, but she attains a sort of power at the close.
Christine: Caroline Faber.
John: Christopher Harper.
Julie: Lucinda Millward.
Director: Tom Daley.
Designer: Tom Scutt.
Lighting: David Holmes.
Sound: Carolyn Downing.
2009-10-06 00:18:20