Review: After Miss Julie, Park Theatre

After a successful August Strindberg’s Miss Julie in Park 90 a couple of years ago, Patrick Marber’s update, After Miss Julie, returns to play in the same space. The setting is now 1945, at the very end of the war and the night of a General Election that would deliver the first Labour majority government in the UK, but the core remains the same; three people in a kitchen over the duration of one evening. 

In the kitchen Christine (Charlene Boyd) is cooking dinner for her fiancé John (Tom Varey), chauffeur to a powerful Lord and MP. They flirt and dance until they are interrupted by Miss Julie (Liz Francis), entitled daughter of the aristocratic Lord. As a celebration party rages around them, tucked away in the kitchen, John’s long simmering desire for Julie – normally restrained by class and position – comes to the fore as Julie tests that restraint, flirting and commanding.  

Marber’s setting change is the key, moving the play to focus much deeper on class. John, the working man from a poor background, but with motivation and aspiration –he dreams of escape and of running his own business – there is class mobility and a dream of power. The set by Eleanour Wintour is the house kitchen, convincingly realised; it feels like a lived and worked in space. Its tight and practical layout reinforces the domestic hierarchy, the Lord’s boots to be polished and a telephone which could ring with a command at any time. The lighting (Jack Hathaway) further boxes the small cast into the kitchen, played entirely in the round. The smart use of lighting strips really seals them off in their world, mirroring the play’s themes of confinement and social constraint. 

However, After Miss Julie feels undercooked, there is an intensity lacking pretty much throughout. Boyd makes the most of this, particularly towards the end, as Christine is more pragmatic, practical, and knows what she needs to survive – a strong contrast to the self-destruction of John and Julie. 

It’s a shame as while Boyd does this well, the lack of intensity, or even much of a spark between John and Julie, makes their relationship difficult to follow. Varey is much stronger with Boyd, playing in that solid relationship, but he doesn’t get much from Francis’ Julie, who is portrayed with a flatness that doesn’t suit the character at all. Julie feels emotionally contained in a way that never quite releases the volatility the role and the relationship with John really needs. It improves somewhat as their night goes on, particularly after their bedroom tryst, but it really lacks that explosive energy that is needed to drive the play.   

Dadiow Lin’s direction really homes in on Boyd, emphasising her slow, methodical life. There are long pauses, many deliberate moments of inaction really nicely foreground Christine’s steadiness; calm in the storm raging around her. 

Despite the sharp ideas and careful design, Marber’s building on Strindberg’s foundations feels incomplete here. When the tensions fail to ignite, the emotional core remains hidden, leaving a sense of promise unfulfilled. 

Adaption Patrick Marber
Directed by Dadiow Lin
Produced by Kit Bromovsky
Set and Costume Designer Eleanour Wintour
Lighting Designer Jack Hathaway

After Miss Julie plays at Park Theatre until Saturday 28 February.