Word: strindberg
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...August Strindberg...
...would be easy to dismiss Miss Julie as just another battle-of-the-sexes play and forget that August Strindberg's compression of dramatic form, use of prosaic, everyday language and intense psychological probing were innovations a century ago. Fortunately, a talented North House cast restores the play's power...
...behind the simultaneous attraction and loathing each feels for the other. But Miss Julie is more than just a battle of the sexes. The play is also a condemnation of an aristocracy so decadent that its hypocrisy has infected the servant class as well. It has been argued that Strindberg is a misogynist who places too much of the blame on Julie and punishes her too harshly. But Jean proves to be just as manipulative--and ultimately, just as spineless--as Julie. Social entropy reduces them both to something less than human...
...worthwhile, then, to spend an evening watching two unappealing characters engage in a verbal slugfest? As in the plays of Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee (two acknowledged Strindberg emulators), the reason is that the struggle takes on an almost metaphysical significance--provided that the actors are in fighting shape. Fortunately, both Goldman and Hurewitz can cut the mustard, and they attack their roles (and each other) with relish...
...Strindberg's 1887 drama about a one-night affair between an aristocrat and her servant, Miss Julie details the emerging European concepts of Darwinism, psychology and the collapsing aristocracy of Europe. This play in the North House Dining Hall should prove an interesting combination of action, mime and dance in what was, in the nineteenth century, a highly innovative and ground-breaking play...