Inevitably, the iconic lead roles command most of the critics' attention in Rachel O'Riordan's production of the Strindberg classic for the Peter Hall Company.
Benedict Nightingale of the Times lauds Richard Dormer for giving "considerable complexity to a character [Jean] usually played as a sly predator with a servile mind behind the macho swagger." Dormer's Jean, he says, is a trapped creature, perversely comfortable in his snare. The Telegraph's Charles Spencer concurs - Dormer conveys a powerful sense of Jean's "lust, chippy pride and nervy servility", he says.
But opinion wavers regarding Andrea Riseborough, the hotly tipped actor tackling one of theatre's most celebrated and demanding parts in the title role. According to the Times she "sometimes scrambles her lines, and overdoes her flirtatious undulating",while the Telegraph suggests that she "never plumbs the depths of desire, despair and degradation the role requires." Yet both agree that by the play's end, she is communicating the right things: "the affectation, boredom and superciliousness" (the Telegraph), and "the naivety of privilege, the anger, the sex" (the Times).
Christopher Hart of the Sunday Times seems pretty smitten with Riseborough, describing her Miss Julie as "near-perfect". She "plays the disingenuous sexual predator to the hilt," he says, "flicking her handkerchief around, her hand on her hip, swivelling and sashaying, her cheeks hectic and glowing, until finally her distracted servant is forced to surrender". Hart revels in describing a scene between Jean and Julie wherein "he tups her vigorously from behind across the kitchen table for a good three or four minutes".
It is left to Rhoda Koenig of the Independent to congratulate the overlooked Pauline Turner as Kristin for providing "quiet, effective support as the human collateral damage" of the battle between the two main characters.
The decision by translator Frank McGuinness to reset the play in 19th century Northern Ireland "allows for some great Irish music in the background and some colourful language," according to the Sunday Times.
But all parties agree Frank McGuinness has provided a convincing interpretation of what the Telegraph hails as "a drama that can still blow your socks off in its study of sexual and psychological abandonment".
