National Theatre, Lyttelton
9th June, 2018, matinee
‘You’ve made quite the mess haven’t you?’
Polly Stenham has updated August
Strindberg’s 1888 play Miss Julie to
contemporary London. Why? Well, it would be foolish to think that this new
version is modern only because of its language, setting and clothes. Like
Phoebe Waller-Bridge achieved in Fleabag,
Stenham goes right to the core of a character who is a privileged but lonely
and messed up individual – and surprisingly relatable.
Tom Scutt’s design, a mega-basement
kitchen of clean white lines, epitomises the filthy rich of today. It’s
completely impersonal, impractical and probably barely used by the homeowner. Christopher
Shutt’s brilliant white lighting is complete with a border which, on the
Lyttelton’s wide stage, creates the effect of a landscape picture of money: a
literal framing of this crucible of class, money, sex and power. This is emphasised
in Cracknell’s direction when, at the end, Scutt’s whole set moves back. It’s
almost like a cinematic zooming out, perhaps to draw attention to the intensity
and hermetic nature of Strindberg’s and Stenham’s world. Stenham and Cracknell
also take us out of the kitchen and into Julie’s birthday party upstairs, Scutt’s
set opening up to reveal even more white.
About half way through one of these
early party scenes, there was rather bizarre moment which I presume was a rare
lapse in the NT’s stage management efficiency. A trap door opened and the top
of a ladder appeared before quickly bobbing down and closing. I later realised
that this mistiming was a spoiler to Chris Fisher’s illusion which was perhaps supposed
to give the effect of Julie being out of herself. However, by this point the result
it had on the production was to only make the party seem more excessive. What
difference to the uber-rich does a random trap door at a party make when there
are already crashmats, massively oversized speakers and rudimentary slides? For
me, it also exposed what I thought was a slightly gimmicky production. Party
revellers climbing into the eight or so dishwashers whilst smearing mud around
the kitchen seemed neither a meaningful metaphor nor a visual spectacle that
fitted in with the rest of the direction. Entertaining, sure, but with no
apparent, enlightening purpose (not that it had to have one).
It’s Stenham’s text and a trio of top
performances that are the things to write home about. From what I remember of the
play from Patrick Marber’s After Miss Julie,
the play is a messy knot of contradictions, hypocrisies, a push and pull of social
politics and passion. That’s not the case with Stenham’s Julie. Before seeing the play I read Tim Bano’s review for The Stage, in which he wasn’t convinced
by Jean’s (Eric Kofi Abrefa) shift from social ladder climbing chauffeur to a fantasist
wanting to fly to Cape Verde that evening and set up a restaurant with his
employer’s daughter. But, for me, the wild change seemed clear. It came right
after he slept with Julie and so seemed to be him drunk on a sip of the
highlife. She has shown him a glimpse of privilege that turns his mind to money
and rash, impulsive escapism. But he also has an ability to get under Julie’s
skin – his speech about his first sight of Julie, unconvinced by her romantic desire
to look like a Pre-Raphaelite sitting alone in a garden, is especially compelling.
The maid character Kristina is inexcusably underwritten but Thalissa Teixeira’s
performance is not wanting: her constrained anger, her trust for Jean and her
true affection for Julie are superbly conveyed.
Vanessa Kirby gets her teeth into
the title character, a thirty-something with complete abandon. It’s not a
surprise that such a destructive character comes from the writer of That Face. Julie may come from a successful
family but she’s not much of a success: a jobless university dropout with a
drug addiction and no true friends. There’s a wince-inducing echo to Fleabag in the killing of a pet, which
Julie does without hesitating so much can she not bear to part with it. Such a
moment is testament that, in a world where it’s so difficult to take control, it’s
easier for Julie to destruct than it is for her to be productive. That’s what it
seems that Stenham’s Julie has a
fascination in, something which it shares with Fleabag and perhaps Magali Mougel’s Suzy Storck. But is this a diagnosis of the modern world and why
did it have to be shown through Strindberg?
Julie plays at
the National Theatre until 8th September.
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Vanessa Kirby as Julie and Eric Kofi Abrefa as Jean in Julie at the National Theatre
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