Jamar Adams-Thompson and Emily Anne Corcoran in Julie | Photo by Sandro Pehar
I wasn’t properly familiar with August Stringberg’s classic of naturalistic theatre, Miss Julie, until reading it in preparation for Icarus Theatre’s production of Julie, Polly Stenham’s contemporary adaptation and… I had thoughts. No disrespect to Strindberg, it was a different time, I know, but it didn’t strike me as especially “real” or “natural.” It’s a tragedy about class, but y’all… it read to me as quite absurd melodrama and I absolutely hated the ending. Be warned, I am going to spoil that detail, but the original is well over a hundred years old at this point, so I don’t feel too badly.
Julie (Emily Anne Corcoran) is the reckless, dissatisfied and recently divorced daughter of an aristocrat. She’s throwing a late night party while daddy’s away, during which she gets super drunk and really lets her hair down. Her father’s driver, Jean (Jamar Adams-Thompson) and his fiancé, her cook, Kristina (Tara Sky), consider her wild behaviour quite undignified. It’s suggested, several times, that her elite guests are not truly her “friends” and that her stature is rapidly diminishing with each uncouth gesture. Blurring the lines of class structure, she engages in a mutually seductive and antagonistic game with Jean.
We open on Corcoran thrashing about, limbs all akimbo, in a trance-like state. It’s an abject spectacle I suspect is meant to show us just how out of control she is while giving us an intimate glimpse into her pain and frustration, though it mostly comes off as rather naive interpretive dance. Despite Alli Carry’s choreography being visually striking, I think it suffers, as this production does generally, from too little rehearsal.
I don’t buy, for instance, people climbing all over the kitchen table here. It doesn’t seem playful or sexy, just awkward. Much of the blocking feels rather stiff and performative, as if the cast hadn’t quite enough time with director Jordan Laffrenier to fully inhabit the characters’ impulses and smooth out their movements.
That said, Laffrenier’s intention here clearly isn’t full realism. His scenic design for this kitchen gives us a backdrop of what could be expensive red marble walls, but which also suggests exposed muscle and fascia. Under hypnotic, colourful pulses of light (consultation by Chris Malkowski), those sinewy threads suggest lightning strikes punctuating the emotional storm unfolding before us.
Though the authenticity here is inconsistent, this trio does land on some genuinely funny and truly powerful moments. My heart went out most emphatically towards Sky’s Kristina. When cleaning up after Julie and Jean’s torrid act of carnal disloyalty (a very persuasive sequence in itself), her nudging the askew table back into place is an understated, quietly devastating bit of business. And her final monologue to Julie, clarifying exactly what has been stolen from her, is not only some of the finest writing here, but Sky’s performance is as grounded and scathing as it is gentle.
One of my biggest issues with both the original and this adaptation is the fact that I really do not care about Julie’s plight. I find her, in text, almost entirely uninteresting and there’s little Corcoran can do about that. There are times, however, when I can vibe with her, especially when she’s sort of channelling Annie Murphy’s endearing Alexis Rose from Schitt’s Creek—a spoiled rich girl, still flailing about in adolescent defiance despite being well into her thirties, discovering her own flawed yet valuable humanity.
I was never entirely convinced by her chemistry with Adams-Thompson, though some of their exchanges are persuasively tense, especially as they negotiate turbulent power dynamics. Adams-Thompson is especially compelling as he, a menial worker with ambition, navigates the precarious waters of their situation. So intrinsically aware of how differently he exists in the world, he embodies truths that she has the privilege of trying to dismiss.
And it’s here that the most compelling aspect of Stenham’s adaptation asserts itself—Jean here isn’t just older and her servant, he is also Black. This racial tension intensifies the story’s class discussion and prods uncomfortably at the liberal white tendency to evade acknowledgement of systemic inequalities and fixate on our own personal, progressive attitudes, often oblivious to the more pernicious tendrils of racism squirming beneath the surface.
While I don’t think it’s in the writing, this cultural discussion is furthered by the casting here. Unaddressed yet clearly indicated, Kristina is indigenous. This establishes a thematically crucial dimension to her bond with Jean and sharpens the betrayal. Laffrenier’s intriguing choice to have them all barefoot, especially since Kristina and Jean are technically on the job, seems somehow connected to this examination of power and intimacy, though I’m still unpacking that.
For those who know the original, yes, Julie’s bird figures into the scenario, though having Julie perform the awful act gives her a bit more agency and ends up being thrillingly unhinged. Aforementioned spoiler alert: I am also greatly satisfied that her suicide—which I still find somewhat unearned and ridiculous—isn’t endorsed by Jean. Fuck that shit. And having us sit through the act (hauntingly underscored by Jamal Jones) is sincerely sad and harrowing, with Corcoran playing the moment with an almost whimsical affect that made it all the more wrenching.
And I wish they had left it at that because the actual final moment is overwrought, unnecessary and undermines the impact.
Julie
March 19 to 28, 2026
Tarragon Theatre, Extraspace
(30 Bridgman Avenue)
70 minutes
Tara Sky and Emily Anne Corcoran in Julie | Photo by Sandro Pehar