August Strindberg's taut 1888 drama about an upper-class woman's forbidden passion for her servant explodes nightly at the American Airlines Theater. Updated by British playwright Patrick Marber as After Miss Julie, the current setting is 1945, on the eve of Labour's history victory. The class wars may be erupting, especially at one country estate.
The sexy, taunting, rich girl Miss Julie (Sienna Miller) both commands John, her father's chauffeur (Jonny Lee Miller), who returns her desire, and is repulsed by his servitude. He, in turn, is defined by service, yet demeaned by her insistence that he beat her. While sadomasochism was shocking to polite 19th-century society, here it devours any pretensions about station. It's a vivid reminder of how degrading twisted passion and the class system can be. Throughout the play, John dutifully polishes his employer's shoes, though he can never fill them.
Being Strindberg, the misogyny is always close to the surface. Miss Julie is cruel, pathetic, alluring and annihilating in equal measure -- a perfect counterpoint to John's suppressed anger, torn between dreams of advancement and plagued by subjugation.
Their cat-and-mouse game is riveting on stage, their distance beautifully rendered by the set design -- an exceedingly long kitchen table. Both have their demons; only one can survive. The third member of the drama, John's fiancee, cook Christine (Marin Ireland), has no illusions about class, sex or power. She is as appalled by the social breach as the personal betrayal.
Directed by Mark Brokaw, After Miss Julie is an emotionally bloody play -- sex and death inextricably linked. All three neatly calibrate their performances; the chemistry between the two leads is electric, as is their downward spiral. This is a stark, economical and memorable production.
The travails of Miss Julie could be fodder for Ann Landers, an extraordinary columnist who, from 1955 until her death in 2002, dispensed advice to readers in more than 1,200 U.S. newspapers. In real life, Ann was Eppie Lederer, a wife and mother, a Midwestern Jew and a liberal who pried open America's eyes about taboo subjects.
In her column, she tackled sex, homosexuality, divorce, abortion and a host of domestic travails -- major and minor. The extraordinary Judith Ivey captures her essence in the charming and touching The Lady With All The Answers at the Cherry Lane. Playwright David Rambo sets the play in 1975, in Lederer's elegant Chicago apartment. She's been married for 36 years to business go-getter Jules, the Budget Rent-a-Car founder, has one daughter and has been penning her popular column for 20 years. She's also in the grips of her own domestic crisis.
Lederer had a distinct twang and bouffant and, as portrayed by Ivey, who uses her physical traits to mine her character, she's a doll. Funny, down-to-earth and willing to admit mistakes, she confides that she and her twin sister, Popo, better known as Dear Abby, are like porcupines. They huddle together for warmth, but are also capable of pricking each other.
Our sympathies are all with Eppie, a stay-at-home mom who, through luck and hard work, eventually called LBJ and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas friends. And produced a column that doubled as public service.
Ivey relates her life story with tremendous energy, at her liveliest when she shares some of her crazy letters: "This will twist your turban!" The Lady With All The Answers is entertaining, heartwarming and heartbreaking. Ivey gives one of the best off-Broadway performances of the year.
She's not alone. The four-person Emerging Arts Theater ensemble that performs multi-characters in Penny Penniworth is excellent. A Victorian send-up of all things Charles Dickens at TADA Theatre, the play is clever, witty and worthy of a larger venue. It terms of economy and snap, it resembles the Hitchcock paean The 39 Steps. Both utilize ingenuity, improvised costumes and swift character changes to produce instant comedy.
Here, however, various Dickens' novels, including Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, are knowingly zapped. Playwright Chris Weikel lampoons British accents and famous literary characters with expertise. The pace is fast, the direction fluid and inventive and the cast -- Jamie Heinlein, Christopher Borg, Jason O'Connell and Ellen Reilly -- first-rate. Penny Penniworth is a theatrical gem. Don't miss it!