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. Maria Studio
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.
What follows is one long power game, with sex and class the weapons and no one person holding the ball for long. Are Julie’s advances passionate or patronising? Is John moved by love or envy? Only Christine knows her place, much good that it does her.
Frame’s performance is wonderfully contained, Bew is believable as a man haunted by his past and future, and Dormer attacks her character’s schizophrenia with gusto. However, moments between John and Julie that should be seriously unsettling often come across as histrionic, leaving their final psychosexual showdown feeling incongruous.
Marber must take some of the blame. "I’m a bad girl". Really? But there are missteps in Natalie Abrahami's direction here, too. Of all the questions asked, "Did they really behead a budgerigar?" should not be the one that sticks.
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
[TMA] member. 2004 - to close for an estimated 18 to 24 months to undergo an essential overhaul costing £12.5 million. Re-opened Oct. 2006 with the new auditoria named in honour of two theatre women, designer Maria Bjornson and director Clare Venables who died in 2002 and 2003 respectively. The Maria seats 160 while the Clare seats 80.
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