A Battle of Class, A Battle of Sex
Jennifer Ball
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Krista Morin as Miss Julie and Jordan Hancey as Jean : Close Encounters
photo: Ryan Anderson
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Miss Julie Steps Over the Line
Playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912) did not see the world through rose-coloured glasses. His early, naturalistic plays tethered chauvinism and despair to gender and class relations, while his later work belied a fascination with the occult (he got to that after a severe mental breakdown).The pitiful battle of the sexes that frames Miss Julie (1888) was probably a result of his state of mind after seeing his first marriage dissolve into divorce proceedings.
"The first thing that you need to know about Strindberg is that he was insane," Margo MacDonald, the stage director for Third Wall Theatre's production, said. "He has often been described by people who knew him as being a haunted man. [One who] grew very distrustful of people - and especially of women - yet at the same time he was absolutely drawn to them."
Coming from the home of a very unhappy couple, Strindberg thought men and women could never live together happily. "He really felt that they were too far apart from each other and that one would always be vying for control of the other. At the same time, however, he thought that one of the greatest joys in life was the attempt that people made to try to be together."
The attempt at togetherness in Miss Julie - one of Strindberg's best known and most performed works - is between a noblewoman and her father's footman. Its effect on the household has all the subtlety of a head-on collision.
In the kitchen of a stately home, which is owned by a wealthy count, we encounter
Jean (Jordan Hancey) and the head cook Kristine (Sarah Adams) gossiping. Jean is revealing to Kristine how wild the count's daughter - Miss Julie who is played by Krista Morin - is and how her fiancé abandoned her after she tried to train him with a riding whip. But Miss Julie has entered the room unobserved and catches the tail end of his story. Sensing her advantage, Julie flirtatiously invites him to come dancing with her and by doing so she steps over the line between master and servant. "They are uncomfortable and incomplete and marred by everything that is a barrier between them," MacDonald offers. "If they were both just farmers' children they could be quite happy together." Instead they are cast by Strindberg's ink as an aristocrat whose era has passed and as a dog whose day it seems to be.
As the evening lapses into post-coital repose Jean perceives that Julie is developing feelings for him and he turns the situation quickly and tragically to his advantage. "Jean is someone who will always survive because he believes that it is worth it," MacDonald says. "She, on the other hand, can never see the way out."
In his disillusionment and emotional fatigue Strindberg couldn't either. He reminds us that sex for sex's sake is not always simple and Julie is inexorably punished for it.
MISS JULIE
MARCH 18-21 AND MARCH 23-27 AT 8 P.M.
MATINEE SUNDAY, MARCH 21 AT 2 P.M.
TICKETS $18, STUDENTS/SENIORS, $15
ARTS COURT THEATRE, 2 DALY AVENUE
Life is a battle...and how dare they say Strindberg was insane! I think he was brilliant and knew what love/living was all about. The twisted minds of two people living and controlling each others lives..isn't that how it is. Delve deep into your inner soul...doesn't everyone have control overs ones'mate. Strindberg was right to be distrustful and drawn. Miss Julie wins my applause for a work well done. Miss Julie didn't step over that barrier she made it...and so she shall have forbidden love..the kind we all so devilishly crave. Sex is not always simple...Jean is a heel and Miss Julie was the dog who got caught in the leash.
I do commend Strindberg......will there ever be a way out?
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Jennifer Berardini
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| When illusions and ideals are shattered... |
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the sound you hear when you cry is not just moans of despair. it is the sounds of your illusions and ideals being shattered.
class? how contemptible. a dog's day? each must have it's own. marrying them in drama is enlightening. life does not imitate art.
insane? sounds more like this man found his senses.
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Thomas J. Martin
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