An entertaining update of a 19th century classic
Being a teenager can be tough, as this emotional rollercoaster of a play attests to while kicking off the Minerva’s 2024 season.
A modern reimagining of August Strindberg’s seminal play Miss Julie, Laura Lomas takes the melodramatic emotions and class tensions of the 1888 original and condenses it into the 18th birthday of Julie.
She is a troubled, selfinvolved girl whose daddy has ditched her to spend the night with his 24-year-old girlfriend, leaving her free to pack his palatial home with bodies, hedonism and a chance to forget.
The only people there who seem to have any meaningful connection with Julie are her best friend Christina and Christina’s boyfriend Jon – who happened to help clean Julie’s house when he was a child and now works for her father.
The play begins with Christina and Julie getting ready before the revellers descend, talking about how they plan to travel to Thailand.
But Christina is hiding a secret – she has an interview for Cambridge in the morning which would scupper their plans.
As the night wears on, Julie unravels as the booze flows, making increasingly destructive choices as Christina and Jon are sucked into the black hole.
The staging of the first act is very immersive; audience members feature as guests of the party, invited to sit on sofas and seats around the stage while the performers dance around them.
In the original, Julie is the main character – but this version turns it into a proper three-hander.
Bafta nominee and The
Responder star Josh Finan fizzed with Jon’s nervous energy, mixed with a humble charm that made his cutting remarks towards Julie sting all the more.
Rachelle Diedericks was mesmerising when she brought out the quiet strength of Christina – but when there is what should be a devastating revelation, her reaction felt oddly one-note.
And Nadia Parkes as
Julie ran the whole gamut of emotions and she fleshed out her anti-heroine, making you hate and pity her in the turn of a sentence.
An entertaining and relevant adaptation.
Until Saturday, June 1.