Review by Brian Carroll and Barbara Popel, seen at Fringe de Montreal
45 min | Dramedy | PG
There’s definitely an audience for this play. You may be one. We weren’t.
Around Miss Julie, by playwright Harry Standjofski, is about 4 young people and their attempt to put on a modern version of Strindberg’s classic tragedy Miss Julie. There’s Julie, a wealthy young miss who knows zip about theatre but fancies herself a theatre director. And there are her 3 cast members – callow young actors recently out of drama school: Ilona with her Paris experience, Donna with her seething anger, and her boyfriend Lyle. Julie casts them as Miss Julie, Catherine the cook, and John the chauffeur.
These four stumble through an audition, a first read-through, learning their lines, and clumsy rehearsals. These scenes are interspersed with scenes from their real lives. There are lots of in-jokes about the theatre world (ignorant directors, ugly costumes, life bleeding into art and vice versa), and lots of angst in each person’s “real” life. Ilona’s long distance relationship with her boyfriend Sergio is crumbling. Donna’s insecurity is threatening her relationship with Lyle. Julie has dropped out of her Master’s in Philosophy to devote herself and her father’s money to this vanity project and random sexual adventures.
This madcap comedy will appeal to theatre students and young theatre professionals. They dominated the packed opening night house, laughing heartily at every in-joke. They clearly appreciated Standjofski’s plot twists. We recommend this play to that audience.
But why not a more general audience? Contrast it with Daniel MacIvor’s This is a Play, another in the “bad play within a play” genre. MacIvor has his actor/characters thinking (in voiceover) the same thoughts that audience members have when viewing a bad production. Around Miss Julie has the same thoughts that actors have during rehearsals.
We don’t expect madcap comedy to be realistic. But we do expect it to have characters we care about. In this case, only Ilona elicited sympathy.
Opening night revealed production problems:
Confusion: Afterwards, we couldn’t agree on which scenes were “rehearsal of the play” and which were “real life”. Such scenes ended with a “reveal” but we still couldn’t agree on two scenes.
Blocking: The actors’ movements were often awkward. Sometimes the set worked against the actors, impeding their movements.
Music: The background music didn’t move the plot forward and sometimes over-rode the dialogue.
Sound cues: At least one sound cue (cell phone) was late.
NOTE: PG definitely means Parental Guidance; there’s explicit sexual content in the dialogue.
As we said before, this play isn’t for everyone. Is it for you?
Around Miss Julie by Hopegrown Productions is playing at T.A.N. Cafe on Tuesday, June 25 at 7:00pm;Wednesday, June 26 at 7:00pm; Thursday, June 27 at 7:30pm; Friday, June 28 at 7:30pm; Saturday, June 29 at 6:00pm; Sunday, June 30 at 9:00pm. Tickets are $10.
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