Miss Julie by August Strindberg. Translated by Michael Meyer. Park 90, 13 Clifton Terrace, London until 06 July 2024.

2✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“This Miss Julie is a miss.”

Plays sometime pass their sell by date and this perfectly efficiently performed production of a rather dated version by Michael directed by Max Harrison is a perfect example. It may have been a fight to the death across the class divide between Miss Julie and the valet with social climbing aspirations when it was written, and for a long time afterwards, but here it is simply actors emoting throatily to not a lot of effect. The night of passion – basically rape – between Julie (a rather shrill albeit gorgeous Katie Eldred) and Jean (Freddie Wise suitably tensed up at the injustice of it all) ends with her returning to the kitchen with little more than a couple of buttons undone. The only person who seems to be of this world is Christine (Adeline Waby), the cook who is Jean’s potential wife – when she finds out what the pair have been up to she accepts it as one of those things and gets on with her life. She gives a splendily cool, controlled performance. She knows her place and how to make the most of it. Meyer’s translation first performed in 1965 has some very dated language and the sound effects for the party by the locals that is supposed to be going on outside the big house, at which Miss Julie is making the advances to Jean she will later continue in the kitchen, are dreadful although the rest of the staging – it is in the round – is handsome. The play gets done endlessly as it offers two roles actors can relish playing, but in its day it was also a social commentary on the class distinction between the foolish Julie and the aspiring to climb the ladder Jean and how difficult that ascent would be. It is also hard to see what this Julie saw in this Jean or the other way round. It can be done so that it works but this attempt, while briskly performed, does not succeed in making the play do what it once did, and could still do. This Miss Julie misses its targets.

Cast

Katie Eldred – Miss Julie.

Jean – Freddie Wise.

Christine – Adeline Waby.

Director

Director –Max Harrison.

Set & Costume Designer – Kit Hinchcliffe.

Lighting Designer _ Ben Jacobs.

Sound Designer – Emily Rose.

Movement Coach – Marcin Rudy.

Period Movement Coach – Diana Scrivener.