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Published: 2 February, 2012
by JULIA RANK

August Strindberg’s 1888 exploration of gender, sex and power isn’t an obvious choice for a repertory company as it only features three characters, but Mark Leipacher’s concentrated staging with a fresh adaptation by Emily Juniper captures the intensity of the central relationship and its wider implications.

On a balmy Midsum­mer’s Eve, the Count’s daughter Miss Julie abandons her status as the lady of the house to invite herself to the servants’ fes­tivities, with her eye on Jean, her father’s valet.

Locked in a subversive game of “playing at being equals” fuelled by alcohol, sexual attraction and plots of mutual destruction, Julie has the power to begin the flirtation and bark orders at her servant, but he has the upper hand as a man because a woman will always be suspected of having “fallen”.

Leonie Hill’s eager and volatile Julie is particularly startling when she reveals the way in which she was brought up by her mother to destroy men.

Against the sparse set is a heightened sense of sound with a meticulous­ly timed soundscape of clinks and clattering issu­ing from the invisible props.

The ensemble of inebriated revellers are constantly present with their muffled humming and whispering (rather distractingly in places), rushing onstage with careless abandon during Julie and Jean’s tryst in his bedroom.  

This is a powerful and passionate final production for The Faction Theatre Company’s residency at the New Diorama.

UNTIL FEBRUARY 18
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