AFTER MISS JULIE
Park Theatre
★★★
“full of wonderful dialogue and astute observation”
In the original 1888 play, “Miss Julie”, by August Strindberg, the three hander is supplemented by the offstage presence of a fourth character – Miss Julie’s father – whose unseen authority is felt throughout and is a reminder of the dying aristocracy from which Julie is trying to escape. In Patrick Marber’s adaptation he is still there, but his influence is reduced to conversational asides. The focus is on the tragic love triangle and the dynamics between people on opposite sides of the class divide. Marber has updated the action to 1945 on the eve of Labour’s historic election victory. Julie, the daughter of an MP, seems to have little interest in the politics of the time beyond asking her father’s chauffer, John, whether he voted Labour or not. But we soon learn she has other, more pressing concerns on her mind.
The play opens with Christine, the household maid, preparing her fiancé John’s dinner. From upstairs we hear the muffled strains of a big band going through the Glen Miller repertoire. The party is in full swing, but for Christine and John the evening is coming to its end. Until Julie bursts in, crossing a divide she pretends isn’t there. And there’s the crux. The mask she wears doesn’t convince. When she claims to be ‘just a simple country girl’, we are supposed to believe that society is changing. But we don’t, and it isn’t. Liz Francis, as Julie, is a vivacious presence with her Lady Di accent and devil-may-care tipsiness. A Sloane Ranger thirty years before the phrase was coined. Intent on subverting the system, she insists on taking John upstairs to the party to dance with her. ‘It’s not an order, it’s an invitation’. This confuses Tom Varey’s John – a stickler for tradition. He’d rather obey an order than accept a flirtation.
Director Dadiow Lin is not afraid of the pauses. The actors often tiptoe around the silences, lighting cigarettes invariably half smoked. They are the eye before the storm, and when the dance is over and Christine (Charlene Boyd) has gone off to bed, the true drama begins and the sexual tension between John and Julie surfaces. The passion is all too artificial, however. We cannot see much beyond the game they are playing and are left struggling to believe the impending and implied tragedy. Varey gives a strong performance as John, baring the unpredictability of a dangerous dog. In all the toing and froing, we never quite grasp, however, what causes his moods to turn so rapidly. He is at his most caustic after discovering that Julie’s money is tied up in a trust, thereby quashing his dreams of fleeing to New York with her, but we had hoped his motives were less mercenary.
When the party is over, and they’ve had their midnight tryst (offstage), Charlene Boyd, as Christine, re-emerges from her sleepless night and is given her moment to shine. Having spotted her fiancé in flagrante, her reaction is beautifully balanced. Gritty and nuanced, Boyd’s performance has the restraint of deadly silence. When she smells John’s unwashed fingers, the moment is moving and symbolic. The ensuing slap is quite a shock.
Unfortunately, Christine is dispensed with too quickly and we are again left with the emotional battles between the other two. Motives and intentions become more blurred as dawn approaches. But as an exploration of the social mores of the time, the lens is in sharp focus. The basement kitchen, authentically represented by Eleanour Wintour’s in-the-round set, is a microcosm of that society. The play is full of wonderful dialogue and astute observation, but the stakes never reach the bar that has been set. Ed Lewis’ sound design weaves in a gentle crescendo of a drone that suggests more of a climax than the one delivered. The lead up is nevertheless enthralling, with fine performances from the trio. The best of Strindberg is left intact while Marber introduces pertinent modernisms. Its inconclusive coda reminds us, too, that nothing has really changed – and eighty years on from Marber’s setting, the same struggles apply, although in different forms maybe. We are all torn between dreaming and surviving, and “After Miss Julie” captures that contradiction.
AFTER MISS JULIE
Park Theatre
Reviewed on 13th February 2026
by Jonathan Evans
Photography by Teddy Cavendish
