MISS JULIE
LION AND UNICORN

SADISM, masochism, rape and suicide – just another night at the Lion and Unicorn.
Johan Strinberg’s controversial play, written in 1912, gets an Act Provocateur revamp, updating the rip-roaring erotic tale for a 21st-century audience.
Julie, an aristocratic young woman, flirts with her father’s valet Jean. Lust turns quickly to rape. Outsiders witness the attack, but take it as a one-night stand. Miss Julie fears her name will turn to mud and they plot an escape together.
This appears to be the classic social class fable. But rather than emphasising a common humanity between ‘high’ and ‘low’, Strinberg finds a mutual inhumanity. And the playwright’s notorious misogyny puts a controversial twist on the classical format.
What is the difference between women and men? Strinberg believed that all women were masochistic and desired to fall. It is on these grounds that Miss Julie is constructed – she appears a model of women’s liberation, but her natural impulses are toward obedience and subordination.
This is a character who does indeed confess her desire to fall, and continues to flirt and fall in love with a man who has just raped her.
She willingly submits to Jean’s sexual games and promises to “obey like a dog” if he saves her from disgrace.
In the end she ends up surrendering wholeheartedly to Jean’s will – to the extent that she kills herself on his command.
The psychological mind-games were strangely compelling.
There was a convincing heat between the two – particularly from the Kosovan Shaban Arifi as the forceful male. This is raw and physical theatre excellently choreographed. The slaps, kicks and punches felt all too real – Miss Julie’s legs bore the bruises of previous performances.

Until July 10
020 7485 9897