Miss Julie

This article is about the play by Strindberg, for other works see Miss Julie (disambiguation).

Photograph of the first production in Stockholm of Miss Julie in November 1906, at The People's Theatre. Sacha Sjöström (left) as Kristin, Manda Björling as Miss Julie, and August Falck as Jean.

Miss Julie (Swedish: Fröken Julie) is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg dealing with class, love, lust, the battle of the sexes, and the interaction among them. Set on midsummer night of 1874 on the estate of a Count in Sweden, the young woman of the title, attempting to escape an existence cramped by social mores and have a little fun, dances at the servants' annual midsummer party, where she is drawn to a senior servant, a footman named Jean, who is particularly well-traveled, well-mannered and well-read. The action takes place in the kitchen of Miss Julie's father's manor; here Jean's fiancée, a servant named Christine, cooks and sometimes sleeps while Jean and Miss Julie talk.

The plot is primarily concerned with power in its various forms. Miss Julie has power over Jean because she is upper-class. Jean has power over Miss Julie because he is male and uninhibited by aristocratic values. The count, Miss Julie's father (an unseen character), has power over both of them since he is a nobleman, an employer, and a father.

On this night, behavior between Miss Julie and Jean which was previously a flirtatious contest for power rapidly escalates to a love relationship—or is it just lust?—that is fully consummated. Over the course of the play, Miss Julie and Jean battle for control, which swings back and forth between them until Jean convinces her that the only way to escape her predicament is to commit suicide.

Characters

Miss Julie: Daughter of the count who owns the estate. She is strong-willed. Raised by her late mother to "think like and act like a man", she is a confused individual. She is aware of the power she holds, but switches between being above the servants and flirting with Jean. She longs to fall from her pillar.

Jean: Manservant to the Count. He tells a story of seeing Miss Julie many times as a child and loving her even then, but the truth of the story is later denied. There is good evidence for both the truth and fiction argument here. He left the town and traveled widely, working many different jobs as he went, before finally returning to work for the count. He has aspirations to rise from his station in life and manage his own hotel, with Miss Julie being part of his plan. He is alternately kind and callous. Despite his aspirations, he is rendered servile by the mere sight of the count's gloves and boots.

Christine: The cook in the Count's household. She is devoutly religious and apparently betrothed to Jean, although they refer to this marriage almost jokingly.

The Count: He is Miss Julie's father. Never seen, but his gloves and his boots are on stage, serving as a reminder of his power. When the bell sounds, his presence is also noted more strongly.

Summary

The play opens with Jean walking onto the stage, the set being the kitchen of the manor. He drops his boots off to the side but still within view of the audience; his clothing shows that he is a valet. The playwright describes the set in detail in naturalistic style. Jean talks to Christine about Miss Julie's peculiar behavior. He considers her mad since she went to the barn dance, danced with the gamekeeper, and tried to waltz with Jean, a mere servant of the count. Christine delves into the background of Miss Julie, stating how, unable to face her family after the humiliation of breaking her engagement, she stayed behind to mingle with the servants at the dance instead of going with her father to the Midsummer's Eve celebrations. Miss Julie got rid of her fiancé seemingly because he refused her demand that he jump over a riding whip she was holding. The incident, apparently witnessed by Jean, was similar to training a dog to jump through a hoop.

Jean takes out a bottle of fine wine, a wine with a "yellow seal," and reveals that he and Christine are engaged in the way he flirts with her. Noticing a stench, Jean asks what Christine is cooking so late on Midsummer's Eve. The pungent mixture turns out to be an abortifacient for Miss Julie's dog, which was impregnated by the gatekeeper's mongrel. Jean calls Miss Julie "too stuck-up in some ways and not proud enough in others," traits apparently inherited from her mother. Despite her character flaws, Jean finds Miss Julie beautiful or perhaps simply a stepping stone to achieve his life-long goal of owning an inn. When Miss Julie enters and asks Christine if the "meal" has finished cooking, Jean instantly shapes up, becoming charming and polite. Jokingly, he asks if the women are gossiping about secrets or making a witch's broth for seeing Miss Julie's future suitor. After more niceties, Miss Julie invites Jean once more to dance the waltz, at which point he hesitates, pointing out that he already promised Christine to dance and that the gossip generated by such an act would be savage. Almost offended by this response, she justifies her request by pulling rank: she is the lady of the house and must have the best dancer as her partner. Then, insisting that rank does not matter, she convinces Jean to waltz with her. When they return, Miss Julie recounts a dream of climbing up a pillar and being unable to get down. Jean responds with a story of creeping into her walled garden as a child—he sees it as "the Garden of Eden, guarded by angry angels with flaming swords"—and gazing at her longingly from under a pile of stinking weeds. He says he was so distraught with this unrequitable love that he tried to die beautifully and pleasantly by sleeping in a bin of oats.

At this point Jean and Miss Julie notice some servants heading up to the house, singing a song that mocks the pair of them. They hide in Jean's room. Although Jean swears he won't take advantage of her there, when they emerge later it becomes apparent that the two have had sexual relations. Now they are forced to figure out how to deal with it, as Jean theorizes that they can no longer live together anymore — he feels they will be tempted to continue their relationship until they are caught. Now he confesses that he was only pretending when he said he had tried to commit suicide for love of her. Furiously, Miss Julie tells him of how her mother raised her to be submissive to no man. They then decide to run away together to start a hotel, with Jean running it and Miss Julie providing the capital. Miss Julie agrees and steals some of her father's money, but angers Jean when she insists on bringing her little bird along—she insists that it is the only creature that loves her, after her dog Diana was "unfaithful" to her. When Miss Julie insists that she would rather kill the bird than see it in the hands of strangers, Jean cuts off its head. In the midst of this confusion, Christine comes downstairs, prepared to go to church. She is shocked by Jean and Miss Julie's planning and unmoved when Miss Julie asks her to come along with them as head of the kitchen of the hotel. Christine explains to Miss Julie about God and forgiveness and heads off for church, telling them as she leaves that she will tell the stablemasters not to let them take out any horses so that they cannot run off. Shortly after, they receive word that Miss Julie's father, the Count, has returned. At this, both lose courage and find themselves unable to go through with their plans. Miss Julie realizes that she has nothing to her name, as her thoughts and emotions were taught to her by her mother and her father. She asks Jean if he knows of any way out for her. He takes a shaving razor and hands it to her and the play ends as she walks through the door with it, presumably to commit suicide.

Adaptations

• In 1912, Anna Hofman-Uddgren directed a film version, based on her own and Gustaf Uddgren's screenplay; Manda Björling played Julie and August Falck played Jean (based in turn on the stage production in Stockholm in 1906). ^[1]
• In 1950, Birgit Cullberg made a ballet version to music of Ture Rangström
• In 1951, Alf Sjöberg made a film version from his own screenplay. ^[2]
• In 1965, it was adapted as an opera by Ned Rorem to an English libretto by Kenward Elmslie
• In 1972, John Glenister and Robin Phillips directed a television version, with Helen Mirren and Donal McCann as Julie and Jean. ^[3]
• In 1977, William Alwyn's opera , with an English libretto adapted from the play by the composer, was premiered as a BBC Radio 3 broadcast.
• In 1986, Bob Heaney and Mikael Wahlforss directed a television adaptation, set in South Africa in the 1980s, in which the two main characters were separated by race as well as class and gender. ^[4] It was based on a 1985 stage production at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town. Sandra Prinsloo played Julie and John Kani played Jean.
• In 1987, Michael Simpson directed a television version, in which Patrick Malahide played Jean and Janet McTeer played Julie.
• In 1991, David Ponting directed a television version, in which Sean Galuszka played Jean and Eleanor Comegys played Julie. ^[5]
• In 1995, Patrick Marber wrote and directed After Miss Julie, in which the events of the play were transposed to an English country house on the eve of the Labour Party's landslide 1945 General Election win. The play was staged in 2003. ^[6]
  • In 2009 the Roundabout Theatre Company produced After Miss Julie in New York, directed by Mark Brokaw and starring Sienna Miller, Johnny Lee Miller and Marin Ireland (as Christine).
• In 1999, Mike Figgis made a film version from a screenplay by Helen Cooper; Saffron Burrows played and Peter Mullan played Julie and Jean.
• In July 2006, a new translation by Frank McGuinness was produced at the Theatre Royal, Bath by director Rachel O'Riordan. Set in 19th-century Northern Ireland; this version relies on the tension between the Roman Catholic Irish servant class and Anglo-Irish Protestant gentry to carry Strindberg's message to an English-speaking audience.
• In 2009, Toronto's CanStage staged a new version. Set in 1964 Mississippi, playwright Stephen Sachs wove in themes of racial violence and miscegeny against the backdrop of the American Civil Rights Movement.
• In June 2010 Scandinavian American Theater Company produced the Craig Lucas adaptation of "Miss Julie", directed by Henning Hegland and starring Lisa Pettersson as Miss Julie, Albert Bendix as Jean and Anette Norgaard as Kristine.

In performance

• Miss Julie at the Internet Broadway Database

1984 January performance of `Miss Julie` by Internnationalist Theatre (founded by Angelique Rockas)at the Richard Steel London. "I have not seen a better production od Strindberg`s `Miss Julie` than the Internationalist Theatre staging ..directed by Alkis Kritikos . It is wild raw , steeped in emotion and dramatic drive...reveals the aristocratic Julie and the servant Jean in all their vivid colouring and depth of corruption...played with force and insight, tenderness and ferocity by Angelique Rockas as Julie and Garry Cooper as Jean..."R.B. Marriott The Stage

2011, 22nd-26th November. A performance of Helen Cooper's 1999 adaptation will take place at the Corpus Christi Playroom, Cambridge, by students of Cambridge University.

References

1. ^ Miss Julie at the Internet Movie Database
2. ^ Miss Julie at the Internet Movie Database
3. ^ Miss Julie at the Internet Movie Database
4. ^ Miss Julie at the Internet Movie Database
5. ^ Miss Julie at the Internet Movie Database
6. ^ Guardian, 26 November 2003