Brandon Bedore

Theatre 1 Play Review 11/24/13

Mies Julie at the Shakespeare theatre is an adaptation rewritten by Yael Farber of the

1888 Strindberg play Miss Julie that takes the themes of sex, violence, the battle of the sexes as

well as social status and puts an edgier modern twist on them. In the original story, the flirtatious

relationship between the upper class Miss Julie and her low class servant Jean erupts into a love

interest overnight. Many of the story remains the same but what is different is in the adaptation is

Miss Julie is the white daughter of a plantation owner in South Africa who owns John, an

African American slave. This leads to a new theme that was not in the original that deals with

ownership of the land. This theme blossomed extremely well and it is a result of the actors being

from a South African theater troupe. Overall, I feel like the adaptation was an incredible success

mainly because it took a controversial topic in 1888 and made it provocative again in the 21st

century.

One of the more striking aspects of the performance happened before the house lights

went down and that was the set and the use of sound. The set consisted of a low hanging fog that

would remain for the entire performance, which allowed the lights to create an ethereal

atmosphere. In the same vein, a saxophone player as well as a laptop create a low chanting sound

that made my hair stand on end. These sounds bled into the performance when an actor, who

played several abnormal instruments as well as chanted in traditional Xhosa style, joined them.

Her character represented John’s ancestor who died before the master stole the land. John’s

mother Christine hears the harsh guttural chants and recognizes her mother’s presence even

going so far as to attempt to break through the floor to free her remains; this is the second time

she has done this. It was truly a spectacle to listen to and at one point, she sings notes incredibly
low for anyone especially a women. Miss Julie also makes use of her vocal ability to enhance her

character. She begins the performance a booming rich sounding alto and slowly her voice shrinks

down into a snivel as John destroys her power over him. What remained powerful throughout the

entire performance aurally was the diction of John and Miss Julie. They hit every consonant

crisply and from my second row seat I could see there was quite a lot of spit, which means you

are doing it correctly. When they were not hitting their consonants to cut through the air, they

also used silence to create tension. They felt the moments where silence was the only thing that

could up the already sky-high tension and it was very effective. The topics the show deals with

already create a base level of tension but the voicing of the lines exponentially raised it. Once

you grow, accustom to the sounds of the stage then you can analyze the set pieces with detail.

The kitchen set pieces were minimal but the worn disgusting state they were in made

their presence prominent. One of the cooler things on the stage was the dirt that surrounded the

tile floor. It created a boundary on stage while still pushing the idea that the people are poor. It

also allowed characters to exist inside the kitchen as well as outside of the house without ever

needing a set change. Arguably, the most important set piece of the entire performance manifests

itself in the form of boots. John spends a large portion of his time cleaning, buffing, wiping, and

scrubbing his master’s boots and they soon seem to represent the power the master has on both

John and Julie. Whenever Julie pushes an ideal that would get John in trouble with his master, he

would brush her off then return to cleaning the boots. This restraining power carries throughout

the entire performance until the end when John dons the boots.