The Conical Glass: Shock of a summer's night

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Shock of a summer's night

If plays are Swedish food, then "War Music" was a 300-pound, overcooked meatball and the Aurora Theater's "Miss Julie" is a delicious wild strawberry cake with whipped cream. August Strindberg's wildly controversial (in its day -- it was written in 1888) still has the power to shock, and, in Mark Jackson's staging, to awe. At a brisk 90 minutes, "Miss Julie" had me mesmerized from the first moment to the last.

The always splendid Lauren Grace portrays Miss Julie, the daughter of a count and a very messed-up girl whose flirtation with her father's footman, Jean (in a powerfully virile turn by Mark Anderson Phillips), sets the events of the story in motion. It's Midsummer's Eve, and Julie would rather party with the servants than do, well, whatever it is upper-class young women did in 1888. We learn that Julie recently broke her engagement, so presumably she's at loose ends. Despite the fact that Jean's fiancee, kitchen maid Christine (Beth Deitchman), is right there, Julie orders Jean to dance with her -- and then to kiss her boot. But Jean eventually gets the upper hand. The interplay of upper and lower classes must have been as scandalous in late 19th century Sweden as the sexual content and language.

I had never seen "Miss Julie" before, although I knew how it ended -- when you're dealing with a 120-year-old play, some spoilers are bound to leak out over the years -- but even so, the suspense was almost unbearable at times. We had seats in row A, and the actors were often literally just inches away from us. This is what theater should be -- emotional, raw, captivating, immediate. Go, and be transported.

posted by 125records @ 1:38 PM

0 Comments: