The curious trend of European modernist theatre classics reinterpreted for contemporary Britain continues.
One week after Cate Blanchett opened The Seagull, The House Party reimagines August Strindberg’s study of sex, class and power in Miss Julie.
The Headlong/Frantic Assembly collaboration makes for explosively convincing dance sequences once Julie’s 18th birthday gets going.
Synnøve Karlsen’s posh, erratic Julie jousts with the good-natured northern failure Jon, while the play boosts the minor role of cook Kristen to kind, trusting BFF and girlfriend Christine on the verge of transcending her class via a Cambridge interview.
The vulnerability and isolation that money creates is drawn out beautifully. The innovative coda, set ten years after the shockwaves of Julie’s betrayal, show the irreparable emotional damage of desperate intimacy.
The futility of trying to escape your class remains as true today as in 1888.
Photo credit: Ikin Yum
