Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – MIES JULIE & THE DANCE OF DEATH: CSC’s Strindberg pairing explores the treachery and mystery of love

• By drediman
• February 10, 2019
• No Comments

Today, Classic Stage Company’s repertory productions of August Strindberg’s Mies Julie and The Dance of Death via Conor McPherson and Yaël Farber, respectively, opened. It’s a fascinating pairing. Seen individually, each makes for explosive domestic drama. Together, they trigger a larger rumination over the mysterious nature of romantic love, particularly with respect to its treachery.

James Udom and Elise Kibler in Yael Farber’s “Mies Julie”, after August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie”, at Classic Stage Company. Photo by Joan Marcus.

The stronger – and more radically revised from the original Strindberg play – of the two productions is Mies Julie (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). I had seen Ms. Farber’s updating of Strindberg’s Miss Julie previously at St. Ann’s Warehouse half a decade ago in an acclaimed co-production by the Baxter Theatre and the South African State Theatre (the same production that was enthusiastically received at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival). Although that staging generated considerable heat – the retelling resets the play in a rural South African farmhouse 18 years after the end of apartheid – I thought the cavernous St. Ann’s was much too large to fully appreciate and soak in the intensity of Ms. Farber’s reinterpretation of the classic play. Luckily, that’s not the case with Shariffa Ali’s claustrophobic production for CSC, which is searingly and forcefully acted by her quartet of fearless actors, particularly her lustful pair of young star-crossed lovers. Although the play runs only 75-minutes, I was on the edge of my seat throughout was left breathless by the play’s combustible conclusion.

Cassie Beck and Rich Topol in Conor McPherson’s new version of “The Dance of Death” by August Strindberg at Classic Stage Company. Photo by Joan Marcus.

I still vividly remember the excellent 2001 Broadway revival of Strindberg’s The Dance of Death at the Broadhurst Theatre, starring the incomparable pairing of Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen as an outrageous, relentlessly sparring older couple. It might even be argued that I had been spoiled by that experience and that any subsequent production would pale in comparison. So far, that’s been the case – both the Shaw Festival revival I saw a few years ago and this CSC production (RECOMMENDED), although solid, lack the emotional grandeur and visceral punch of that starry earlier staging. I actually quite like Conor McPherson’s new translation, which manages to be both bitingly contemporary yet somehow still period. I just wish director Victoria Clark (a Tony-winner for her memorable performance in the musical The Light in the Piazza) had staged the play accordingly. Her safe, perfectly respectful and respectable production is very much solely in 19th century mode, as is the acting, which unfortunately diffuses the unsettling, viscous aggression of Strindberg’s cat-and-mouse precursor to Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

MIES JULIE / THE DANCE OF DEATH
Off-Broadway, Play
Classic Stage Company
1 hour, 15 minutes / 1 hour, 50 minutes (neither with an intermission)
In repertory through March 10