Mies Julie - Nice Set
Mies Julie is an interpretation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie taking place in the new South Africa. The set was simple and symbolic, typical of South African Theatre and as a native South African I was prepared for an imaginative, magical ride with no punches pulled.
The set promised much. The floor was done to look like cracked tiles of red baked earth, which, combined with the cranked up air conditioning, had us all sweating within a few minutes of sitting down and for me immediately evoked the smells, feelings and thoughts of home. Heat has an effect on the rational mind, bringing tempers and violence to the surface. I liked the way heat was almost it's own character in this piece.
As far as the production itself goes, I am a South African myself, so I cannot speak to how this performance may land for a non-South African, but for me the adaptation was extremely appropriate. A great deal of the nuances of the script were lost in the blunt acting style, but the words were there for those who would listen and I feel like with the right cast and director this piece might be able to convey the confusion, anger, wild hope and apathetic resignation that is rampant in the current climate. There were a few lines like (and I'm paraphrasing terribly) "Welcome to the new South Africa where even miracles like ours leave you where you were before" that really hit home for me.
This piece reminded me not only of the political and geographical climate of my youth but also of my youth itself. Particularly my angsty years as an acting student. Yearning for something bigger, deeper and more dramatic I was an aggressively indulgent actor. Many adolescent actors are. And this production had the same qualities, all anger and big emotion, but lacking depth, ignoring the complexities of the human spirit and ignorant of the need for stakes and objectives. Hard, heavy and straining to convey the gravitasse and intensity of the plot, the result was indicative and unsupported. Right from the first moment we have the full force of both John and Julie's angst thrust upon us and relentlessly so until the final curtain. And because of this a lot of the internal logic of the play didn't make sense. The power dynamic between the white man and black man, between the rich and the poor is complex and shifting. I did not see that onstage. Nor did I see any genuine anger, pain, longing or even lust (although the latter came the closest) all I saw were portrayals of what big emotions “should” look like. Unsupported anger, from Hilda Cronje through the entire play, meant every line was said as a bark. Bongile Mantsai was powerful but also unsupported and I did not believe his pain, frustration or ambition. There were three real moments in the entire piece: the post-coital embrace, a few lines of banter between Christine (Zoleka Helesi) and John, and Christine's resignation to the inevitable when she urges John to join her at church.
It’s hard for me to critique these performances because the energy thrown at the roles was so overwhelming I couldn’t take in what was being attempted or where the failure points were. These are obviously dedicated actors and it's not like they aren't capable of giving truthful performances. I don't know if it was a directorial or actor choice, but it did feel like instead of portraying humanbeings the entire performance was based on a mood. Which seems ridiculous to me because every actor knows that you can only “play angry” for a few lines before you lose your audience. The one thing that was apparent was the lack of understanding of some of the lines and I wonder if this wasn't the reason so much energy was thrown at this play, beating it into submission through sheer force of will. A bit more table work and a sense of curiosity in the exploration would free it right up.
There were interesting moments. The music was atmospheric, but not mindblowing. The stylized movement was interesting for a little while, but with nothing behind or beneath it, it became annoing really quickly. By the time we got to the shocking moments in the play that could have been explosive and impactful I just didn’t care any more.
Obviously there were those in the audience who felt differently since the cast and crew received a standing ovation. I do feel like this production was a very near miss, but I must admit it was hard to sit through all the same.