Far from exciting or successful
In the past two years, Toronto has seen two stunning new versions of August Strindberg’s classic Miss Julie: one locally produced ( After Miss Julie) and one from South Africa presented by World Stage ( Mies Julie).
We might have hoped that Tuesday night’s North American premiere of Julie, Philippe Boesmans’s operatic version of the same work, would have offered us a hat trick, but the tepid chamber piece that opened at the Bluma Appel Theatre as a joint venture of Canadian Stage and Soundstreams was far from successful, or even very exciting.
Boesmans is a very well regarded Belgian composer, whose work has met with great success in Europe, but judging from what we heard, it’s not much more than Alban Berg lite, lots of moody undulations with occasional crescendos into rapid torrents of emotion, but nothing to really sear the soul.
There’s also plenty to find wanting in Matthew Jocelyn’s production. The original libretto by Luc Bond and Marie-Louise Bischofberger has been translated into really appalling English by one Jeremy Drake, although no one has seen fit to give him credit (or blame) anywhere in the program.
But no matter what language we’re discussing, this libretto turns Strindberg’s powerful story of sexual repression and class warfare into romantic operatic sludge.
Gone are the hard edges of the original story of Julie, the uptight daughter of a domineering aristocrat, who flirts with the footman Jean on Midsummer’s Eve, unleashing forces neither of them are prepared for.
In this version, the minute that Lucia Cervoni’s Julie swans onto the set in a flowing red gown, we know that she’s looking for action and since the only man on the stage is Clarence Frazer’s somewhat doltish Jean, we know where things will wind up.
When they finally consummate things offstage (during a thunderstorm, of course) the ceiling of Alain Lagarde’s mysteriously tacky set seems to collapse in one corner and a torrent of water pours onto the set. Oh, really!
Jocelyn and Lagarde have decided to use every square inch of the Bluma Appel stage, which means Cervoni and Frazer are constantly racing from one side to the other, in an attempt to create synthetic excitement. It doesn’t work.
There’s also a pointlessly fanciful use of symbolic props, such as a series of helium balloons or a giant extension cord connected to an electric razor. Throughout, there’s a kind of half-hearted attempt to set the action somewhere in the 20th century, but it’s all too vague to mean anything.
The two leads sing well, but emote as though they were in a school tour of La Traviata, not a play inspired by Strindberg. Sharleen Joynt, as the servant Christine, on the other hand, actually has some restraint, which is welcome.
Despite the 18-piece orchestra, led with style by Leslie Dala, there really isn’t enough in Julie to attract classical music fans, and I can’t picture any theatre buffs comparing this with the last two versions of the play we’ve had in Toronto and getting even remotely excited about it.