"Miss Julie", a play by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg: performance reviews

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

A high-profile premiere of August Strindberg's Miss Julie took place in Moscow. The Theater of Nations, where Yevgeny Mironov works as artistic director, has invited a popular play by German director Thomas Ostermeier to be staged.

The original version of the production was only seen once by the public. After that, the performance was banned for reasons of censorship. Today, “Miss Julie” is a performance that is shown on theater stages in many countries of the world, and which enjoys overwhelming popularity. In Moscow, the story of Strindberg acquired a completely new sound, and the action of the play was transferred to Russia in the 21st century.

Intriguing start

As a prelude to the performance, on a screen installed at the back of the stage, viewers can see the following picture: a woman decapitates, after which she slowly guts a chicken. Dead chicken paws and sharp confident movements of the knife create the necessary mood - prepare the audience for a tough conversation.

Yevgeny Mironov invited to the role of directorThomas Ostermeier, as he is widely known for his ability to literally dissect relationships between people and to explore the psychology of women to the subtleties. Mironov, expressing his impression of the work of the German director, noted that his performances cause a real shock, that he is tough and sharp in translating his thoughts on stage. However, the play "Miss Julie" turned out to be different - according to Mironov, the director created almost Chekhovian nuances.

History of the creation of the play

Swedish playwright August Strindberg staged his play back in 1889. However, after the premiere, it was banned. The reason for what happened lies in the plot of the work, which could not be perceived in the era of the romantic 19th century.

In the center of the plot is the tragic love of people from different social strata. A beautiful aristocrat gives in to the impulse of her heart and becomes the mistress of a servant in her father's house - a commoner Jean. Relations between the characters have nothing sublime, they are just carnal - such a picture, of course, was completely unthinkable for its era. Shows of the work created by August Strindberg were resumed only 17 years later.

Russian interpretation

As already mentioned, the Russian audience was able to see a new reading of the play. It was the story of "Miss Julie" transferred to modern Russia. The Theater of Nations, under the direction of playwright Mikhail Durnenkov, took care of creating such a version of the classic production that is closer and more understandable to the heart of the viewer. The main roles are played by recognized and very talentedactors - Yevgeny Mironov and Chulpan Khamatova. Only in this interpretation of the play Mironov plays the driver, and Khamatova - the daughter of an oligarch. The main character is a tragic image that evokes a lot of conflicting emotions.

Work on "Miss Julia"

For more than two years there have been negotiations on cooperation with the director. As a result, Ostermeier agreed not only for the reason that Russian theatrical traditions are very strong. He was also interested in the story of the play itself, which in a new reading took place in Russia in the 21st century.

The director admitted that he himself had not studied Russian reality, so he trusted the playwright in everything and did not correct any of his proposals. In addition, Ostermeier noted that talented Russian actors were involved in the production of "Miss Julia", able to enrich the action with the depth of their feelings.

Start action

The action of the performance "Miss Julia" immediately captures the viewer's attention with an intriguing tense dialogue, and then develops more and more rapidly. The main character betrays his bride. The daughter of an oligarch, Yulia, for the first time in her life, finds herself in the company of ordinary people. Maid Christina decides to forgive the groom who cheated on her. Heroes are completely entangled in their feelings and relationships. Julia sees only one way out of the circumstances that have swallowed her - suicide. And all these dramatic events take place against the backdrop of pure falling snow.

Main character

Miss Julie has become a symbol of the heroine of our time, whose character and inner world sometimesdefined as "semi-feminine-semi-male". The viewer can see only one night in the life of the heroine - her last night. In the original version of the play, Julie is the daughter of a count who, left alone on Midsummer night in a house with servants, succumbs to the temptation to be loved by her father's footman Jean. After that, the heroine, unable to bear the shame, ends her life by suicide. The last hysterical throwing of Julie is interpreted by researchers as signs of a comprehensive degradation of the personality.

Miss Julie is really not ready for life, does not know how and does not want to live. Everywhere she feels like a stranger and disgusted by everyone. And, what is even worse, the girl is not at all able, figuratively speaking, to look ahead, she does not see any future for herself. Many researchers of theatrical art base their conclusions on the character of the main character on the author's preface to the play. In it, Strindberg, with no concealed pride and very insistently, claims that in the play "Miss Julie" he managed to show the audience a completely new character. Julie's actions, according to him, are strictly motivated, and her sad fate is explained by a number of socio-psychological and even medical reasons. The character of the girl, no doubt, is strong, bright, although quite strange.

Reasons for the "fall"

Why is the life of a rich, educated girl so tragic? The character of a girl is broken by many different factors at once. On the maternal side, she has an ill-defined origin, which is why social insecurity grows in her soul. It cripples the fate of the heroine and inadequate sex education, as well as unexpected material complications in her family. Not the last role is played by the special physical and emotional excitement inherent in Julie's sensitive thinking. All this is very close to the later work of Strindberg, his so-called "chamber pieces", which appeared almost twenty years later than "Miss Julie".

Julie's character essence

The most important motif of the main character's story is the motif of her fall, originally embodied in the girl's obsessive dream, which repeats over and over again. What happens to her in the production further is only the real embodiment of this dream. In the work of the author of the play, sleep is the most important category of theatrical thought. In his later "chamber plays", where, one might say, there are no heroes, but only characters, they live exactly according to the laws of sleep. So Julie, although she is an obvious, sympathetic and emotional heroine, lives according to the same laws. In a certain sense, this girl is "woven from the same substance as our dreams." What happens to her in the story cannot be reduced to the usual "fall" of the countess with a lackey servant. The fatal abyss that draws her through obsessive dreams is much deeper than this affair with the footman. And it is no coincidence that in the play it is Countess Julie who starts the conversation about dreams.

Dreams come true

A girl dreams that she is being stubbornly pulled down, deeper and deeper, but only something interferes and does not let her go. What she “needs to go down”, Julie knows with her inner being, although she is unlikely to realize it with her mind,therefore, the decision to end her life by suicide seems to her the only correct one. However, the heroine commits her suicide, as if in a dream - she seems to be in a state of hypnosis, not fully aware of what is happening to her. That Julie, who mind and soul belongs to the world of dreams, a semi-fantastic world, perfectly understands only one thing - the inevitability of her own end. But the nature of the character of the heroine is still dual, at the edge of her being Julie comes into contact with what can be called a completely real world, with the very world in which both the lackey Jean and especially the cook Christina, who symbolize the truly aggressive stability of reality, are quite firmly established. Julie, on the other hand, is a much more fragile, unstable creature, constantly torn by her soul between what her dreams are and how she perceives reality.

The real side of her image is expressed in excruciating inner agony: there is fear, and a weak, but still existing hope, and attempts to reverse the current events. According to critics, Julie is grotesquely touching in an attempt to be truly sincere with a lackey who is not able to understand her simply because of her completely different mental organization. But the girl just needs to speak out, and it doesn’t matter to her in front of anyone, however, she has no one else to talk to and with. In addition, the heroine decides to use Jean as a kind of "tool" for suicide.

Reviews of the Moscow performance

"Miss Julie" viewer reviews are very controversial,as, however, and many theatrical productions, especially with a socio-psychological orientation. Basically, the negative reviews of the audience are connected, according to them, with the unjustified cruelty shown on stage in the episodes of the murder of a chicken and a dog. In addition, many comments note that the decision to transfer the action of the play to modern Russia deprived the plot of any meaning, because what was a “fall” and tragedy in the 19th century seems completely ridiculous to the modern world. Some even say that after watching the play, they left a heavy residue on their souls.

Of course, do not forget that these are only private opinions, it would be a mistake to fully rely on them. Moreover, the performance has no less positive reviews, which largely come down to the brilliant play of actors who literally live on the stage of the life of their characters and give themselves to their profession without a trace. It is not surprising that tickets to the play “Miss Julie” have been on sale for more than one year, and everyone takes their impressions out of what they see on stage.