Review - Miss Julie - Storyhouse, Chester

Adaptations of classic texts that translate the action into a different time and place often feel contrived, as though written because they could rather than should have been done. Now and again one comes along that feels vital, fitting and timely, and Amy Ng’s new version of Miss Julie is a perfect example.

Shifting the play from a Swedish midsummer to the Lunar New Year in 1948 Hong Kong feels like a perfect fit for the narrative. Recent political unease both in Hong Kong and in Britain makes this an apt time to explore Strindberg’s themes from another angle.

Julie here is the daughter of a Tai-Pan, a figure who represents an outmoded and unwelcome colonial hierarchy. Sophie Robinson plays her with a finely balanced mixture of brittle selfishness and mental frailty. Camille Mallet de Chauny is John, the Tai-Pan’s valet, treading a precarious tightrope between polite forbearance and self-preservation. The revelation in this production though is Emma Lau’s Christine. Ng’s adaptation along with Dadiow Lin’s exquisite direction gives her a tremendous dignity and a real sense of purpose and power. She is prepared to make huge sacrifices for Julie but in the end her strength prevails in the gentlest of ways.

Played out on Adam Witshire’s extraordinarily detailed set with its sunken kitchen, and accompanied by an evocative soundtrack by Nicola Chang, time seems almost suspended throughout the unbroken 75 minute span. This is a tremendous achievement of balance between beauty and brutality, bringing fresh poignancy to Strindberg’s masterpiece.

5 Stars – Amy Ng’s new take on Miss Julie is a triumph of poise and poetry

This review was originally written for and published by The Stage, and is posted here retrospectively in its original form.

 

Production photographs by Mark McNulty