MISS JULIE. To 14 October.

Colchester

MISS JULIE
by August Strindberg new version by Helen Cooper

Mercury Theatre To 15 October 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 14 Oct 2.0pm
Audio-described 14 Oct 2.30pm
Runs 1hr 20min No interval

TICKETS: 01206 573948
www.mercurytheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 October

Class act rather than sex act rules.
Not a great crowd-puller, Strindberg. But such concerns have never stopped Dee Evans’ bold Colchester regime. And as Miss Julie’s a concise, single-set 3-hander (leaving out the brief eruption of a peasant chorus, rarely used), it’s been possible to create a compact theatre-in-the-round on the Mercury’s stage, with some 150 spectators cramped on 4 sides of the kitchen where Count’s daughter Julie spends a libidinous midsummer eve roughing it with daddy’s valet Jean under the watchful mind and sleepy eye of Christine, his fellow-servant and fiancee.

Strindberg’s obsession over women makes him an unlikely writer for frequent revival in a feminist-influenced society. Yet his internal turmoil of desire, fear and suspicion leaves opposite voices speaking loud. Jean’s all about ascendancy, Julie can’t escape a vertiginous desire to fall; something made explicit early on. It’s clear in Victor Gardener’s estuary Jean, tall and affirmative in every move. And in Kate Copeland’s Julie.

An old translation calls the play Lady Julia, clearly making the point Julie isn’t just young, she’s very definitely upper-class. And Copeland’s easy-mannered youngster is someone whose sexual desires are stirring complexities a sheltered upbringing hasn’t prepared her for. Good as far as it goes (the naïve desire to take a birdcage on her elopement fits well), the interpretation doesn’t accommodate Julie’s emotional inheritance from her parents.

She remains a figure out of her depth rather than an active agent, someone distressed rather than maddened. Director Patricia Benecke doesn’t help by replacing the couple’s offstage coition, as the peasants (usually, on economic grounds, through lighting and sound) invade the kitchen, with standing-on-table, close-quarters, keep-your-trousers-on, sex, something that’s unsurprisingly risible. Intimate realism has to be very realistic not to fail.

And Benecke’s staging obscures two key moments, sending Jean almost offstage to strop his razor (a sign of controlled violence prefiguring the very end), similarly muffling his sudden servitude as the Count commands him through a speaking-tube.

Contemptuous disapproval of her mistress easily shows in Charlie Morgan’s Christine, whose learned servitude is consoled by religious belief in ultimate superiority. A strong class act, then, but the sex-drive limps along.

Miss Julie: Kate Copeland
Jean: Victor Gardener
Christine: Charlie Morgan

Director: Patricia Benecke
Designer: Sara Perks
Lighting: Tony Simpson
Sound: Marcus Christensen
Music: Jules Evans

2006-10-12 10:11:38