In theatre, there is always the wish to make a production relevant to its audience, be it based on a new or classic text. Old texts have been re-inpreted in new times, in new contexts, in many various ways.

When it comes to August Strindberg, there has often been the question of his (alleged) misogyny and that is my point of departure. My hypothesis is that it is not so easy to avoid Strindberg’ s intentions since they are firmly rooted in the very structure of his plays.

One interesting example is the production of The Father at Stockholm City Theatre in 2010. The director, Philip Zandén tried to counteract the play's very strong bias in favor of the male protagonist by telling the story from the point of view of his daughter, Bertha, now an established artist (like in another Strindberg play, Kamraterna). However, since the story was told in basically the same order and with the same scenes as the original, this shift of focus did not work. It simply was not plausible that Bertha would remember the events where she was not even present. Zandén, on the other hand, stressed the baby-like vulnerability of the male protagonist.

From now on I will deal strictly with productions and adaptations of Miss Julie, of which there are many all over the world. The many productions prove the play's wide appeal; I suspect that the cast consisting of two women and one man is an important factor of the popularity of the play (not counting the extras, who are often dispensed with). I am particularly interested in how the plot is rendered and the effect of this in each case.

My point of view is that of a theatre critic. In my life I have seen quite a few miss Julies which may explain my weariness when I see bad ones. Some of them I have reviewed, others I have seen anyway. For instance, I saw the extremely popular version directed by Thommy Berggren at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm (premiere 1 Oct. 2005). Mikael Persbrandt's Jean was shown as some kind of working class hero, while Marie Bonnevie's Julie was half crazy from the beginning. This destroyed the intricate power shift which is the play's greatest asset.