E-mail to a friend Find tickets

After Miss Julie

Published Monday 16 February 2004 at 11:30 by Peter Hepple

Patrick Marber is at great pains to point out that this is a ‘version’, not a translation of August Strindberg’s best-known play. And although he retains the kernel and to some extent the setting of the original, there is no doubt that it is virtually a new piece.

To begin with, Marber has updated the setting to a large English country house - with a correspondingly big kitchen, designed on a major scale by Bunny Christie - and the date to 1945, when the Labour Party has just won the first post-war general election with a huge majority. This gives an excitingly different approach to the master/servant relationship which is at the core of Strindberg’s work. The valet John, newly returned from the war, and the cook Christine, who is also John’s lover, are still servants but John is conscious that the times are changing, although he is still wary when Julie, the owner’s daughter, makes what is an obviously sexual approach towards him. But she too is obviously affected by a more free, less buttoned-up world and the situation explodes into a tense battle of wills and urges of a type seldom seen in even the most free-spirited examples of modern theatre.

Particularly striking is the way so much is concealed below the surface, emerging when sexual passion is at its height. In a sense both John and Julie still despise each other, and although the man’s wartime experiences have loosened the bonds of servility, the woman is still an innocent in many respects, misunderstanding her sexual conquest.

Michael Grandage’s superb production tightens the tension throughout and the response from Kelly Reilly and Richard Coyle is nailbitingly suspenseful. Helen Baxendale’s Christine, isolated from the conflict, contributes a fine performance, particularly in her eloquent silences.

This show was reviewed prior to the website launch. A new review may be pending.

E-mail to a friend Find tickets