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Helen Barford, Andy Dowbiggin, Kathryn Ritchie |
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Lawrence Batley Theatre Huddersfield, Buxton Opera House,
Central Theatre Chatham, Pavilion Theatre Dun Laoghaire,
Everyman Palace Cork and New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme. |
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SAMANTHA
BOOTH - STOKE SENTINEL |
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"To
complete their UK and Ireland tour, London Classic Theatre land
at the New Vic with their adaptation of After Miss Julie.
Playwright Patrick Marber set the story on July 26 1945, the day
of the Labour victory over the long-standing Conservative
Government. People were looking to the future, and a new age
which challenged both class and welfare barriers.
After celebrating 10 years as a touring company, director
Michael Cabot started from scratch when casting the three roles
in the play. The flawless performances by Andy Dowbiggin,
Kathryn Ritchie and Helen Barford proved how handpicked these
characters really had to be.
From the moment the audience walked in, Christine (Helen Barford)
was completing chores, grabbing your attention before the play
had begun. Set out as a 1940's kitchen, all life changing events
happen here, and because of the circular shape, everyone in the
audience was likely to get different perspectives and emotions.
Miss Julie (Kathryn Ritchie) is the sumptuous, modern, man
manipulator who keeps up the pace of the plot through its deeply
embedded emotions. Her methods of manipulating John (Andy
Dowbiggin) are ludicrous yet admirable, as post war life filled
some women with desire and lust. The scene is so real, even a
younger audience could feel the class seams between servant and
master behaviour. The time span of the plot is over 12 hours, in
which a full spectrum of emotions was thrown at the audience,
leaving you both exhilarated and drained.
At the end it was sad to say goodbye to these characters, but
their emotional battle with society's constrictions will surely
linger a little longer."
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HELEN
COMPSON -
HEXHAM
COURANT |
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"The Queen’s Hall is going through a welcome phase of
classical live theatre - first Chekhov, now Strindberg, with a
dose of savage Ibsen yet to arrive. And it’s good to see that
there are audiences ready to support such initiatives.
We are fortunate that such excellent companies as London
Classic Theatre still visit Hexham. They very much enrich our
cultural life, especially in these days of governmental
Philistinism. Arts Council accountants please note.
I had doubts when I read that we were to experience, not
Strindberg’s original 1888 Miss Julie, but Patrick Marber’s
After Miss Julie.
Farewell to heady midsummer excesses of the Swedish estate -
hello to the estate of a Socialist peer on the night of Labour’s
landslide election victory in 1945. Surely the social and sexual
mores were very different?
But the how Marber has affected the change proved far more
important than the why. As the author he has confessed to being
unfaithful to the original, but conscious that infidelity might
itself be an act of love. And so it proves to be.
Over an hour and a half of this one-act tragedy, I and an
attentive audience were transfixed by this tale of psychological
class and sex games with overtones of violence and
sadomasochism.
The play is an elegant three-hander. As Christine, Helen
Barford gave an outstanding performance. Often silent on stage
for long periods her movements and gestures were astonishingly
effective.
As John the chauffeur, Andy Dowbiggin gave a performance
as good as, if not better than any I have seen in this play on
more illustrious stages. He maintained a beautiful balance
between the deferential and the lecherous. He conveyed the
conviction that he was as much the seduced as the seducer.
Miss Julie herself is a character that can easily, in the
hands of excessively demonstrative actresses, go well over the
top. Kathryn Ritchie was superb, making real the dilemma of a
girl caught between sexual hunger and emotional frigidity.
That this production was of such a high level was greatly
due to the excellent direction by Michael Cabot, who was never
afraid to slow the action down or speed it into frenzy. He has a
very sure touch and created what is the best production to have
visited Hexham for some years."
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DEREK BRIGGS -
GLOUCESTERSHIRE ECHO |
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"Strindberg’s play of 1888 retains all of its power to
shock and disturb.
This adaptation by Patrick Marber moved the action from
19th century Sweden to an English Labour peer's mansion on
General Election night 1945, adding layers of meaning and
relevance. It was a battle between the sexes and the classes,
set against Labour's first mass election victory.
At a dance for the estate workers, Julie - the beautiful
young daughter of the house - insists on dancing with John the
chauffeur. One minute friendly and playful, the next commanding
and arrogant, she continues her seduction until they end up in
bed.
Control shifts between the aggressive, ill-suited lovers.
John seems merely ambitious but then reveals a fascination with
Julie dating back to childhood. And although Julie personifies
Strindberg's extreme view that women are hysterical, sexual
predators, he gives her physiological depth with a feminist
mother who taught her to both love and despise men, and a
neglectful father.
London Classic Theatre director Michael Cabot deftly draws
out the disturbing layers of nuances in this fine production.
Kathryn Ritchie, in the title role, is movingly credible as a
driven, vulnerable and eccentric 1940s aristocrat. Andy
Dowbiggin, as John, matches her on the see-saw of emotional
control and Helen Barford is all repressed anger and disgust as
his ill-used, conventional girlfriend."
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NOEL ENSOLL -
STAGECORNER.COM |
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"There was a treat for theatre lovers at the Theatre
Royal in March. Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie, by London
Classic Theatre, was a thrilling evening of drama.
The well-detailed kitchen of a country house was in place as the
audience entered. Even before the scheduled start, 'Christine'
was moving quietly around her domain, tending a simmering pot,
folding washing and writing up her housekeeper's accounts. It
was a clever way to lull the audience away from the clamour of
today.
The play updates Strindberg's Miss Julie to election night in
1945 at the country house of a Labour peer, and the dawn of an
egalitarian age. Only three characters appear; Christine, her
fiancé John - the chauffeur, and Miss Julie, whose
'experimental' education at the hands of a social reforming
mother has helped to leave her emotionally damaged. But the
election night staff party is the catalyst for a crisis in their
lives as John and Miss Julie play out an attraction across the
social divide that has simmered since their childhoods on the
estate.
We were drawn in as the drink-fuelled events of the evening
unfolded and enthralled as each tense exchange between the
characters drove the action forward. The whole piece relies on
the quality of the acting and it was a masterly evening.
Kathryn Ritchie, almost against the odds, was believable as an
insecure, alluring and increasingly unhinged Miss Julie. Andy
Dowbiggin as John managed both the self-assurance of the smooth
lady's man and the tawdriness of a class-bound upstart and Helen
Barford's face somehow managed to signal every suppressed
emotion of the simple, church-going ordinary woman broken in her
station in life.
For those who love straight drama this is a first-rate
experience, all too rare without paying West End prices, and
enhanced by the late and alarming appearance of a cut-throat
razor. One might carp that Marber's rewrite suffers class
clichés. But it will send me back to the original, and LCT and
Michael Cabot are to be encouraged in approaching the classic
European repertoire.
If you have wondered why the world loves to sit and watch people
pretend to be other people who do not exist, this is an
instructive evening. It also reminded this reviewer of what we
lost when the motion picture camera was invented."
"Patrick Marber’s relocation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie
begins the London Classic Theatre company’s Modern Takes season,
in which classic texts will be dusted off. LCT’s artistic
director Michael Cabot believes that modern interpretations,
there is a Ghosts to come from Frank McGuinness, will facilitate
a connection with audiences who might be mistrustful of august
names from another era. On this evidence he has a point.
Set in a country house kitchen on the night of Labour’s
stunning general election victory of 1945, After Miss Julie is
more concerned with power and class than sex. Kathryn Ritchie’s
Miss Julie is wildly enthusiastic about the Labour victory but
she can still snap orders to her father’s chauffer, who is also
her lover. Ritchie, fresh from a long stint in The Railway
Children at Waterloo, is a Miss Julie who might be in need of a
slap but her emotional turmoil and her sense of dislocation are
understandable.
The setting is a stark reminder of the master/servant
relationship of the period. There is the comfort of a having a
position for life and the constant fear of being cast out. Andy
Downbiggin’s chauffeur has to keep reminding the wilful Miss
Julie of her position and what is expected of her.
Ritchie and Downbiggin are well enough matched but their
chemistry is not yet wild and dangerous. Downtrodden cook Helen
Barford, who is expecting to marry the chauffer, has some
telling reactions. These characters have more vigour and colour
than Strindberg’s originals, but a touch more will help."
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