August Strindberg’s Miss Julie deals with hierarchies: sexual, class-based and economic.
Adapted as Lady Julie by Apuka Theatre’s Natalie Feheregyhazi, the play also addresses violence against women, a topic as relevant today as when Strindberg wrote the play over a century ago.
Set in the kitchen of a well-to-do household on Midsummer Eve, with its tradition of licentious celebration, the action involves the title character (Feheregyhazi) and her flirtation with her father’s valet, Jean (Alexander Crowther) though he’s aware of their difference in status, he’s as playfully alluring as she. Witnessing the mutual seductiveness, sometimes reacting and commenting on it, is Kristin (Heidi Lynch), the family cook and, it’s hinted, Jean’s fiancée.
As the passion between the central pair builds, Jean takes Julie to his room to hide her from the prying eyes of the other servants. In this version, there’s also a brutal rape that we hear from offstage. That violence colours the entire production, which has already offered brief moments of ferocity and brutality. Just as cruel is Jean’s unconcerned attitude toward Julie immediately following the attack he barely recognizes that she’s in shock and later sees her as pathetic and beneath him.
Making the show even more intense is the venue, not a proscenium theatre where the audience is distanced from the action, but the kitchen of Campbell House Museum, lit mostly by candles and the wood fireplace. We’re so close to the action that we can see Jean sweat, listen to Julie’s shallow breaths as she first pursues her prey and later tries to make sense of a world that’s fallen apart. The confines and warmth of the space on a hot summer evening add to the show’s power.
From the start, the smouldering looks between Crowther and Feheregyhazi define their powerful chemistry their later physicality grows directly from that mutual attraction.
That’s part of the strength of this production, directed by Rod Ceballos. Just as effective is the honesty of the performers. It’s easy to believe every emotion they talk about or simply suggest: Julie’s condescendingly push-pull treatment of Jean, thinking that she’s the one in control ambitious Jean’s dreams to improve his lot and his worry about reputation Kristin’s disapproval of her mistress’s conduct with those beneath her.
Apuka Theatre presents the show in part to raise awareness and money for Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter, an organization that works with women and families escaping domestic abuse. Talkback sessions follow some performances.
See listing.
Next Stage 2014
The Toronto Fringe has just announced the 10 productions that make up the Next Stage Theatre Festival, the winter version of the summer fest. The venue will again be Factory Theatre, with performances from January 8 to 19.
The 10 juried shows all involve artists who’ve had some connection to previous Fringes.
In the Mainspace, look for a remount of Mix Mix Dance Collective’s Jack Your Body, as well as Rob Torr, Ken MacDougall and Saul Segal’s Killer Business: A Murder Mystery Musical, Brenley Charkow’s On The Other Side Of The World and Praxis Theatre’s Rifles, adapted by Nicolas Billon.
Downstairs at the Studio, the remount is the 2012 Fringe sellout Release The Stars: The Ballad Of Randy And Evi Quaid, a hit that drew the Quaids themselves to its final performance. Other productions include Common Descent’s A Misfortune, a musical based on a Chekhov short story, a version of Scheherazade by Nobody’s Business Theatre and Paradigm Production’s Stencilboy And Other Portraits, by Susanna Fournier.
In the intimate Antechamber – the theatre lounge – you can see TiltHAUS’s Polar Opposites, about two polar bears facing extinction, and Sam S. Mullins’s Fatherly.
Theatrical Hearth
A number of Canadians were involved in the inaugural Kendu Hearth Theatre Conference, which ran in Kampala, Uganda, from August 26 to 31.
The conference, presented by KEBUForum and Canadian troupes IFT Theatre and Volcano, was a week “of public discourse on innovation and hybridity in African and international storytelling” that involved conversations, workshops and presentations.
Among those taking part were IFT’s Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu (director of Andrea Scott’s recent SummerWorks hit Eating Pomegranates Naked and also Nightmare Dream, which returns this winter as part of the Obsidian Theatre season), Volcano’s Ross Manson, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard (author of another memorable SummerWorks show, Salome’s Clothes), Theatre Columbus’s Jennifer Brewin, Obsidian’s Leah Simone Bowen, actor/writer/director Gord Rand, choreographer/dancer Nova Bhattacharya and lighting design/community theatre practitioner Jennifer Jimenez.
The event was organized by three East African women now based in different international cities: Otu (Toronto), Pamela Acaye (Kampala) and Deborah Asiimwe (New York).
The keynote speaker was Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, one of the co-authors of The Africa Trilogy, presented in Toronto several years ago.
Jess and Ed
The Ed Mirvish Award for Entrepreneurship goes to NOW cover gal Jessica Moss, whose solo show Polly Polly! was one of the hits at this summer’s Fringe Festival.
Created by David Mirvish in honour of his father, the $2,500 award recognizes business enterprise in the indie theatre community and goes to the mainstage Fringe company that sells the highest proportion of available seats.
stage@nowtoronto.com
