Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

The thwart­ed am­bi­tions and frus­trat­ed sex­u­al scope of a woman's de­sire were at the cen­tre of Fab Pro­duc­tions' pre­sen­ta­tion of Miss Julie: A Lust Sto­ry, staged at the Cipri­ani Col­lege's CLR James Au­di­to­ri­um on De­cem­ber 21. Men have been writ­ing about, and polic­ing, fe­male ex­pres­sions of au­ton­o­my or their deficit since be­fore 1888, when Swedish play­wright Au­gust Strind­berg com­posed the one act, nat­u­ral­is­tic dra­ma. Pro­duced by Far­rukh A Bar­las, the play was adapt­ed for the Trinida­di­an stage and di­rect­ed by Er­rol Sita­hal and Aryan­na Mo­hamad.On Christ­mas Eve, while peas­ants drunk­en­ly rev­el in the streets out­side, Jean (Vedesh Nath), a dri­ver of hum­ble ori­gins but with the as­pi­ra­tions of an ar­riv­iste, con­ducts a dan­ger­ous flir­ta­tion with Miss Julie (Re­bec­ca Fos­ter), the daugh­ter of his mas­ter, and the la­dy of the grand house. While his fi­anc�e, the house cook Chris­tine (Tis­han­na Williams), sleeps, Jean and Miss Julie's flir­ta­tions es­ca­late past the point of no re­turn, and they must de­cide whether to flee or con­front the class cat­a­clysm they have wrought in­to be­ing.

Fol­low­ing Zo­la's tenets of nat­u­ral­ist the­atre, Miss Julie's orig­i­nal script is steeped in af­fir­ma­tions of de­tailed re­al­ism, with a dis­tinct­ly pro­le­tar­i­an world­view. Nat­u­ral­ism was in­tend­ed to ren­der au­then­ti­cal­ly and with­out the ar­ti­fice of pre­tense the world as it is, stripped bare of the fan­ci­ful or myth­ic. On these work­ing pre­cepts, Sita­hal and Mo­hamad's adap­ta­tion is a du­ti­ful but not cloy­ing ren­di­tion of Strind­berg's ar­che­type. Swap­ping a Swedish count's es­tate for a post­colo­nial Trinida­di­an manor fall­en on fi­nan­cial hard times and steeped in ques­tion­able re­pute, the re­framed set­ting works well in con­vey­ing the play­ers' im­me­di­a­cy and the close­ness of their con­cerns. Jean sits to eat pastelles at Chris­tine's kitchen ta­ble, and lo­cal beer is fre­quent­ly pulled out of a cool­er in­stead of im­port­ed brew. It is Bar­ba­dos, not some tiny Eu­ro­pean out­post, that Jean and Julie in­voke as a pos­si­ble sanc­tu­ary.

Be­neath the art and de­sign di­rec­tion of Far­rukh Fayyaz, the sin­gle set­ting of the great house's kitchen was pre­sent­ed in an in­tri­ca­cy of de­tail sure to de­light Strind­berg's long-de­ceased nat­u­ral­ist's eye. The warm, do­mes­tic com­forts of a well-kept es­tate on Christ­mas Eve were sug­gest­ed in mi­nor, mov­ing minu­ti­ae: the fold of a pat­terned kitchen tow­el; tin­sel wrapped around a Yule­tide tree; a red bow af­fixed to a very sig­nif­i­cant store­room door. Fayyaz's em­bell­ish­ments served to iron­i­cal­ly un­der­score the vi­cious ten­sions seething be­tween Julie and Jean, thrust­ing the bon­homie of sea­son­al cheer against the ran­cour of long-held grudges.

Fos­ter and Nath faced a tremen­dous un­der­tak­ing in de­lin­eat­ing the mis­aligned cou­ple's over­stuffed clos­et of snarling is­sues–in­dica­tive of the cor­rupt and cen­so­ri­ous di­vi­sions that ex­ist be­tween the work­ing poor and the idle rich.For the most part, their ef­forts shone with the el­bow grease of per­sis­tent zeal, if not a sliv­er of al­chem­i­cal won­der. That trans­for­ma­tive lau­rel be­longed to Tis­han­na Williams alone, who has en­joyed a year of on-stage strength, in­clud­ing her lead­ing roles in Bren­don O'Brien's Body Equals Bar­ri­er and Prosce­ni­um The­atre's The Wiz. Williams re­mained a plea­sure to be­hold, even in the sup­ple­men­tary role of Chris­tine. Her scenes, though brief, res­onat­ed with a care­ful­ly mut­ed spir­i­tu­al fer­vour, and a mind­ful­ness of her class lim­i­ta­tions, por­trayed through an ar­se­nal of vi­su­al reg­is­ters, fa­cial tics and vo­cal sum­mons.

Nath's Jean was ap­pro­pri­ate­ly rigid with re­pres­sion and vol­u­ble with bare­ly-con­cealed wrath, while Fos­ter's Julie com­mand­ed fleet­ing yet doughty mo­ments of em­pa­thy, where­in the view­er ached for her caged free­doms. The lim­it­ed range of mo­tion she ef­fec­tive­ly cap­tured was even less sym­bol­i­cal­ly promis­ing than that of her beloved bird, who meets a bru­tal­ly sharp end. De­spite this, nei­ther prin­ci­pal play­er steered Sita­hal and Mo­hamad's adapt­ed script in­to con­sis­tent­ly res­o­nant per­for­mances. The la­cu­nae be­tween their mo­ments of evanes­cent cred­i­bil­i­ty, and the sur­feit of their awk­ward­ly-steered ill rap­port loomed too large, chop­ping up what might have been a sat­is­fy­ing­ly vit­ri­olic emo­tion­al carousel ride.

Rather like Jean's dreams of up­ward mo­bil­i­ty, the scope of Fab Pro­duc­tions' pre­miere was marked by in­tem­per­ate de­sire. Strind­berg's source ma­te­r­i­al is rife with mul­ti­ple lay­ers of com­pli­ca­tion, and among these tow­er­ing stra­ta, its play­ers and pro­duc­tion team claimed sev­er­al, but nowhere near all, pos­si­ble vic­to­ries. Miss Julie was a promis­ing, but per­haps in­evitably un­even be­gin­ning to the pro­duc­tion house's de­but.

Miss Julie:A Lust Sto­ry

Writ­ten by Au­gust Strind­berg; di­rect­ed by Er­rol Sita­hal and Aryan­na Mo­hamad

Fea­tur­ing Re­bec­ca Fos­ter, Vedesh Nath and Tis­han­na Williams. Pro­duced by Fab Pro­duc­tions.

CLR James Au­di­to­ri­um, Cipri­ani Col­lege, Val­sayn, De­cem­ber 18-21.