NCT’s ‘Miss Julie’ has a hard time finding its focus

Jason Wright

John Maltese and Cynthia Vodovoz star in NCT’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’.

Jacob Coakley

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011 | 5:32 p.m.

The Details

Miss Julie

November 17-19, 8 p.m.; November 20, 2 p.m., $10-$15

Nevada Conservatory Theatre, 895-3663

Social and sexual politics dominate August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, the tale of a young Swedish noblewoman and the household servant who would have her (and whom she would have … maybe), now playing in the Black Box Theatre at the Nevada Conservatory Theatre at UNLV. The play is set in Sweden in the late 1800s, during the eternal twilight of a midsummer night’s party, a liminal space where the characters might be able to overthrow the strictures of class and upbringing to find true happiness—if that’s even what they want.

Which is one of the reasons the play still resonates today; its questions about gender and class roles are still transgressive. Unfortunately, while NCT’s production is beautiful and has its moments, it never feels transgressive, just confused. The play depends on conveying subtext and giving it clear physical action that demonstrates what’s really going on. Otherwise you end up with dialogue that sounds obvious and laughably flat, and in a play about constantly shifting power dynamics and seduction, being obvious is the last thing that should be going on.

As Jean, John Maltese was too tame. A high-ranking servant from the wrong side of the tracks, he wants more; and even if he’s not sharp enough to cut his societal bonds, he still needs to be dangerous enough to attract the attention of a woman looking for trouble. Cynthia Vodovoz fully inhabits each of Miss Julie’s emotional swings, but there’s an unresolved question to her characterization. There is no one right way to play these roles, just the choices made in each production, but it never felt as if NCT made those hard, limiting choices about who these characters were. What it has now is a beautiful production that races between extremes but doesn’t cut as deep as it should.