Reader Reviews
After Miss Julie (The Young Vic, Inner London)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | I agree with David Baxter. Natalie Dormer's self-loathing sick and twisted contradictory character is the key to this play, and she really pulls it off. She is pompous and egalitarian, abusive and abused, incredibly damaged and convincing with it. But the play wouldn't work if Kieran Bew wasn't a worthy opponent for her power games, and he absolutely is. He more than fulfils the promise he showed in a smaller role in the Almeida's Reasons to be Pretty. His character here is convincingly damaged by the class system , his long history of social climbing and fawning over his betters leaving him brimming with palpable resentment and envy. The play was always intriguing and stirring, even occasionally genuinely moving, despite the fact that these damaged individuals really are not very nice people. - steveatplays | 12 Apr 12 |
| The last time I saw After Miss Julie was in the vast American Airlines Theater in New York with Sienna and Jonny Lee Miller plus an American actress affecting a weird Irish / Cornish accent and making a pig's ear of the role of Christine. The play is much better suited to the intimacy of the Young Vic's Maria Studio which emphasises the simmering class and sexual tensions between the characters. Sienna Miller was very good in the Broadway production as Miss Julie but pales in comparison to Natalie Dormer's superb and highly erotic portrayal. She doesn't make the mistake of trying to make Julie likeable in any way but you still feel some sympathy for a girl who is seriously damaged and unbalanced. It's not her fault that Patrick Marber's version of Strindberg's character is a mess of contradictions - his Julie is a 27 year old nymphomaniac virgin who proves to be a versatile sexual athlete on her first experience. There are times when this play can seem as wooden as the huge table which dominates the stage but Natalie Abrahami's production makes the most of Marber's sometimes flawed adaptation. - David Baxter | 05 Apr 12 |
