Review: SMOKE, Southwark Playhouse

This review contains spoilers.

A BDSM riff on Miss Julie wasn't on our bingo cards for 2023. Strindberg's play about control and social mobility has had a myriad of variations over the years, most recently (and relevantly) in 2019 at The National Theatre with Julie and her intoxicating London. Kim Davis has now adapted the piece, transforming the Swedish Midsummer's Eve revels into a New York City sex party.

Smoke keeps only the bare bones of the original relationship between the character. It chucks away what it thinks it's surplus, almost trying to be a Miss Julie For Dummies, but only manages to deliver an "After Miss Julie" situation devoid of depth. The concept is exceptionally cool and has loads of potential. In theory, it enhances the power dynamic, placing it on an unequivocal level. It's a shame Smoke is a weak and uncritical take on the active themes in Strindberg's classic.

Davis reduces the running time to just over an hour, making it accessible but removing all the meaty bits that put everything into perspective. Julie is the privileged daughter of an artist; John is his 31-year-old overworked and underpaid intern. She resents her father for his absence in her life; he hates him for using and abusing his position.

They bond in the kitchen of the aforementioned BDSM party thrown by his friends. He is taking a breather when she goes in looking for a break, slightly overwhelmed by the atmosphere. They introduce each other with - props to Davis - quite the naturalistic small talk (perhaps the only nod to Strindberg in the show), spending an excessive amount of time bashing her father and his methods. The conversation is forcefully tame until details of their experiences finally slip into it and their exchanges become horribly crude (mind you, that's not a criticism given the setting).

She gives him a rundown of her theoretic training and Ohio-based uninteresting practice; he becomes a teacher of sorts. While the text is disappointingly weak, the production is impressive. Meaghan Martin and Oli Higginson, apparently a couple in real life too, are mesmerising. Directed by Polina Kalinina and Júlia Levai, they orbit one another, gradually gravitating towards each other, and then away again.

Higginson and Martin are all opinionated ambition and restlessness versus aimless privilege and depression. His gaze hardens in the span of a heartbeat as she swings from willing participant to fearful prey. John mocks her naivety; Julie calls out his social status. They berate each other in anger and hatred, then explore their attraction. The actors share the stage with waspish, balletic intimacy.

But the lines of consent grow progressively more blurred. She toes the line of lifelong trauma, but he shrugs everything off after expressing the importance of a certain level of care to prevent assault or discomfort. It's such a shame that the show ultimately doesn't fully hit the mark as this specific framework puts the power dynamics between John and Julie and John and her father in an unambiguous, fascinating light.

Kalinina and Levai's vision is one of great allegory and symbolism. The action unfolds in a sandbox of ash and coal designed by Sami Fendall. Sex is never even simulated, with the characters using the cinders to imply the acts described and the crackling of a fire interjecting at times. They get increasingly dirtier. Dust floats around or they smear it on their skin as Rajiv Pattani's lights change in a flash as a visual metaphor of shock or surprise.

There's a broader discussion to be had about cruelty and abuse (whether consensual or not) as well as the societal implications featured in the play, but Davis refrains from entering it in any way. Then, in an intriguing turn of events, after kick-starting the games by asking John for a smoke, Julie takes out a cigarette from her own jacket at the very end, putting into question her whole innocently inexperienced persona. It's a frustratingly capricious script shaped into a disturbingly sexy, impressive production.

Smoke runs at Southwark Playhouse until 25 February.

Photo credit: Lucy Hayes

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