After Miss Julie
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Cititour.com Review
Strindberg’s "Miss Julie," set in 1874, was scandalous in its debut and has been shocking theatre-goers ever since. Why then, did playwright Patrick Marber feel the need to re-set the play in 1945 London and take the misogynist/misandrist themes and turn them graphically masochistic? The production of "After Miss Julie" from the Roundabout starring Sienna Miller, as the aristocratic Miss Julie, and Jonny Lee Miller, as her servant John, is a perplexing study of human relationships, power, desire, and despair.
Much of this one-act play is ponderously slow as director Mark Brokaw strives to set the tone. Allen Moyer’s meticulously detailed estate kitchen provides the setting where the class struggle takes place. Marber’s reworking of the dialogue does little to change the paradox of Strindberg’s original game of cat and mouse as first Miss. Julie, and then John, takes the upper hand.
Jonny Lee Miller is clearly at ease as the servant with a warped fascination for his mistress, toying with her feelings and standing with the confidence of one who suspects his own worth despite feeling trapped by his station. Marin Ireland, as Christine, a kitchen-worker and John’s fiancé, does an excellent job of blending her love for John with her insistence on maintaining the status quo. Sienna Miller’s Ms. Julie is aptly bi-polar but the actress seems uncomfortable in the long pauses and only really sparks when required to engage in emotional hysteria.
As graphic as the action might be here, the text doesn’t stray very far from Strindberg’s original psychological drama and the resetting of the story at a time in British history where the class system was to be forever changed may not necessarily resonate with American audiences despite our recent obsession with Wall Street bonuses. The core of the play is not politics, but sex. Psychological barriers are far more destructive when planted there by dysfunctional parents than the class system of both Strindberg’s time and Marber’s update. One has to wonder what Brokaw and company intended to gain by staging "After Miss Julie" as opposed to mounting Strindberg’s original masterpiece.
By Lesley Alexander
Visit the Site
http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/aat/index.htm
Cast
Sienna Miller, Jonny Lee Miller, Marin Ireland
Open/Close Dates
Opening 9/18/2009
Closing 12/6/2009
Box Office
212-719-1300
Theatre Info
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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