Theatre · A way to begin
Miss Julie
Fröken Julie
August Strindberg · 1889
Opening lines
Jean
I qväll är fröken Julie galen igen; komplett galen!
Tonight Miss Julie is mad again; completely mad!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from litteraturbanken.se
Synopsis
On Midsummer Night, in the kitchen of a count's manor. The count has gone to celebrate with relatives; his daughter Julie, who has just broken off her engagement, has stayed behind and has danced with the servants, then with Jean, the valet. Kristin, the cook who is betrothed to Jean, watches them drink together and disapproves, then falls asleep. Between the young woman of high birth and the valet, a game of seduction and defiance begins, in which each dreams of escaping the role that rank imposes, and the night wears on.
Context
Written in about two weeks in the summer of 1888 in Denmark, the play appeared in the last days of November with Seligmann, with a preface and cuts imposed by the publisher, and the critics crushed it. The public premiere planned for 2 March 1889 at the Dagmarteatret in Copenhagen was banned by the censors; the play was given on 14 March 1889 in a private performance at the Students' Society, with Siri von Essen, the author's wife, in the title role. Sweden did not see it until 1906, in Lund. In 1951 Alf Sjöberg made it into a film that shared the Grand Prix at Cannes.
Who it is for
A one-act play, performed without an interval, for three characters; it can be read in French in Boris Vian's translation.
Prizes and reception
Its author's best-known and most frequently performed drama, and the major play of naturalism in the theatre.
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