[" PARIAH " AND " MISS JULIE " AT PLAYROOM
SIX]
JUST because August Strindberg is a Scandinavian, one feels inclined to compare him with Ibsen. If one does, both these plays leave one with an uncomfortable sense of gaps, inco- herences, and non-sequiturs. The action takes place in a psychic fog.
Miss Julie is such an intoxicated and auto-intoxicated girl, poisonous to herself and everybody else, and devastatingly tedious in her alternations between vice and Victorianism, that one hopes she really will cut her throat with that razor in the last scene. Miss Hilda Maude, with her delicate air, is really miscast for the part. She failed to convince me of the bibulous vampire who seduced her own footman. Anyway, it is an ugly theme, and the Censor, if he has banned the play, has saved the average audience a number of yawns. It would not be fair, however, to dismiss it without a word for the im- pressive characterization that Mr. Douglas Burbidge gave us of the footman. His acting was a joy : the lackey and the lover coming out by turns.
Playroom Six should have the support of all of us who care for good acting. I would go there again, even for another dose of Strindberg, but there is no fear of that, for they are to play
a comedy in a fortnight's time. F. Y-B.
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