Con’s Score: 2.5 lines of coke
The NT live brings a remake of August Strindberg’s classic, Miss Julie, to life for this theatre-to-film production. Re-writer Polly Stenham and director Carrie Cracknell promise a modern feminist take on this old tale.
Kristina (Thalissa Teixeira) is the Brazilian maid, who is great friends with Julie (Vanessa Kirby, The Crown) who is having a wild birthday party. In the two overly-long dance sequences party-goers are taking drugs, drinking everything and dancing the night away. The theme of decadence is set by the slick two-level set. Ironically or intentionally, it’s excessive.
The driver, Jean (Eric Kofi Abrefa) is engaged to the lovely Kristina And is keeping an eye on Julie for her Dad, and she wants him to dance with her. The second act is basically them flirting, talking and giving into temptation. Their passion and desires to tear each other apart dominate the third act when their realities limits their escape.
There are lots of positives to this production. The two-level set is amazing; the party room is set above the kitchen to give the effect of different worlds. The whole set is halfway along the stage, which puts more distance between the actors and audience, but we’re watching cameras so we are close.
The three main actors are individually excellent. Teixeira is earthy as Kristina, and her final spray is a viciously good one. Abrefa does well and tries but there’s more chemistry with his fiancé than Julie. Vanessa Kirby plays Julie and her slovenly changes seductively. She is very watchable despite her character’s limitations.
The problem is the script adaptation, and irrelevance of the themes. Before the play starts there is an interview with Stenham and Cracknell who say it was important that a woman presented Julie in a feminist way. I’m puzzled. I found Julie’s character was the least likeable.
She comes off as not much more than a richly spoiled brat. There is a moral vacuum inside her that makes her annoying. Many of us have had to forgive the drunken ramblings of a wired friend, but I wouldn’t put them on a stage for 90 minutes. It’s also because a rich girl sleeping with her rich dad’s black driver is something you’d scroll past on Facebook these days. It’s not the taboo it once was. A royal married an African American recently and we rejoiced.
This story is more about betrayal and destruction. This different context weakens the power of her arguments and actions. They’re petulant rather than powerful. Jean’s barbed comments are much more pointed, and I had to remind myself a woman rewrote this.
The play makes the same points as the original and modern times have dulled them. Fortunately, the actors do their best to glaze over the holes and their efforts are worth admiring.
Con Nats – Theatre Now On The Screen
