BASTARDS OF STRINDBERG (Scandinavian American Theater Company at The Lion Theatre)

In 2012 the Scandinavian American Theater Company commissioned four playwrights to each write a sort of riff on Strindberg’s Miss Julie. The result is the four short plays that make up Bastards of Strindberg, a show so full of vitality and charisma that it often overcomes its failings. Strindberg’s Miss Julie begins on a magical Midsummer’s Eve, when Julie, the young daughter of a Swedish Count, makes the mistake of partying with her father’s servants and of having sex with one of them. In the end, the servant, Jean, convinces Julie that her only way out of her predicament is suicide. Anette Norgaard’s moving music and vocals, and Yuki Nakase’s fairy-light lighting design, work well to evoke the enchanted feeling of the white night, serving to compliment David Bar Katz’s Chanting Hymns to Fruitless Moons, directed by Alicia Dhyana House, which is the first take on Strindberg’s classic tale. The most intriguing one of the four, this short play boasts tight and revelatory writing and an explosive climax, creating a world both mystical and mysterious. Unfortunately, the acting needs work. As so often happens when young performers play characters whose experiences are foreign to them, the two leads, Vanessa Johansson as Young Julie and Devin B. Tillman as John, don’t feel believable. Lacking sufficient foundation they play the surface, which results in hollow portrayals.