Review: MISS JULIE (AFTER STRINDBERG) at Goodwood Theatre And Studios

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Tuesday 18th April 2023.

I've just seen, or maybe experienced is a better word, one of the finest performances on an Adelaide stage in a very long time, Miss Julie (after Strindberg). I'll get to that in a moment.

When August Strindberg's Miss Julie premiered in 1888 its premise, and some of the lines, drew the attention of the censors, and the play was staged at the equivalent of the local student union. The idea of a humble but ambitious valet getting involved with his master's daughter, breaching the rules of decent separation between the classes, was anathema, and not just to the Swedes. The action in the original takes place on Midsummer Eve and, rather like Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, or Constance Chatterley and Mellors, the gamekeeper, in the DH Lawrence novel, there's also the intuition of raw animal sexuality, as opposed to the decently conducted intercourse of the upper classes. One of the lines censored in the original has Julie refer to sex with Jean as bestiality.

Miss Julie (after Strindberg), presented in the intimacy of the curtained-off stage of the Goodwood Theatre, brings the story almost 125 years along. The magic of Midsummer is replaced by binge drinking and coke-sniffing. The shape of the narrative is maintained. Julie is the daughter of a very wealthy man. Jean, now John, is an executive assistant in an unspecified company. Chrissie, his fiancée, is Julie's best friend. In the course of the night Julie seduces John, betrays Chrissie, and may actually die of an overdose in the ambiguous final seconds. Emilia Williams is suitably bewildered and betrayed, yet her final moments cradling her comatose best friend will touch you, and Christian Bartlett, lacking the animal sensuality of the original, really clearly communicates the frustrations of his daily life.

The play is called Miss Julie, and Kate Owen is superb in this incarnation of the hedonistic and impetuous daughter of wealth. Director and adaptor James Watson, for Famous Last Words Productions, must have shaped his view of the play around her astounding talent. My famous last words will, I trust, be quoted in the years to come when she is recognized as one of our best.

The stylish and effective production design, by Ruby Jenkins, and sound design and music, by Reggie Parker, play their part well. The short season runs until the 29th. Book here. There is no box office at the theatre.

Watson's vision of the play is not the first to take the Strindberg and update and relocate it. Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie was presented by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild in a double bill with the original in 2014.