It’s hard to view Strindberg’s Miss Julie—even Patrick Marber’s updated After Miss Julie—in light of today’s values. The tragic weight of the play stems from the fact that after two people of a difference social class make love, their world is turned upside down.
Today, a quickie with someone below you in social status is not a shocker, but an exercise in branding—a step on the celebrity ladder of success. In our world of sex tape “scandals” and Levi Johnson posing for Playgirl (one year after standing on the podium of the Republican National Convention next to Sarah Palin) how can we seriously buy the morning-after angst of Julie and her father’s valet? Regardless of whether its set when Miss Julie was written (1888 Sweden) or updated in Marber’s version to 1945 England, the only dramatic question for modern audiences is: will she text her snooty friends and brag about shagging the help—or whether he’ll slip the news to the Post or TMZ in the hopes of a long career of snogging rich debutantes? read more
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