Old Play in Manhattan

Miss Julie still asserts, after 68 years, Swedish Playwright August Strindberg's unflinching though unbalanced view of life. During those years, the theater has seldom offered bolder naturalism than Strindberg's or more psychopathic intensities, and never, certainly, a more implacable war between the sexes.

The conflict in Miss Julie is as much be tween classes as sexes. At a Midsummer Eve revel, arrogant, dissatisfied Miss Julie, the neurotic child of parents who hated each other, becomes infatuated with her father's valet and tempts him into an affair. Respectful enough beforehand, he turns sneeringly overbearing. But, however revolted, Miss Julie is also desperate. She steals her father's money to try to run away with her lover, in the end seizes her lover's razor to do away with herself.

Each of them scarred by ugly memories, they enact--as man and woman, as menial and lady--an ugly drama. Their spitting and clawing seems sick, savage, yet never beyond belief. In the current production, the play's power is more spasmodic than sustained; despite George Tabori's playable adaptation, too much tends to date. Though Swedish-born Viveca Lindfors succeeds in the title role, James Daly overstresses what is crude in the valet by a crudity of attack. Even so, Miss Julie has explosive elements that neither O'Neill, Hellman nor Tennessee Williams has ever surpassed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.