After Miss Julie

Synopsis

Takes as its basis August Strinberg's 1888 class-struggle Miss Julie, which tells the tale of the passionate but ultimately destructive sexual liaison between a lowly footman and the sexual aristocrat Miss Julie. Marber's contemporary take on the idea moves the action from a Swedish estate at the end of the 19th Century to an English country house in July 1945, on the night of the Labour Party's victory over Winston Churchill's Tories in the General Election.

Our Review:

Nancy Groves - 22 March 2012

As the Coalition government continues to tighten the taps on the poor and loosen the belts of the rich there is a reminder of more hopeful, egalitarian times in the Young Vic’s new production of After Miss Julie.

Only kidding. Patrick Marber’s popular adaptation of Stringberg opens in the home of a Labour peer, as family and servants join to celebrate the party’s landslide election victory of 1945. Not so much Upstairs Downstairs, then, but somewhere messy in between, as suggested by Patrick Burnier’s clever set, which centres round the staircase itself.

"Don’t confuse my appetites", says long-serving John (Kieran Bew) as his almost-betrothed Christine (Polly Frame) tries to feed him and kiss him at once. But when Miss Julie (Natalie Dormer) trips into their kitchen, a high-heeled question mark to Christine’s buttoned-up full-stop, his appetites stand no chance.

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Latest User Review

steveatplays - 12 April 2012:

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....

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