Miss Julie

Justin Hayford, Chicago Reader

Highly Recommended - Chicago Reader - "Like most audiences at promenade productions, the one shepherded through the Hypocrites' deconstruction of August Strindberg's one-act turned into a self-conscious clump, blocking one another's sight lines and yearning for invisibility. But imagining close-up spectators may have encouraged director Sean Graney to push his actors toward the understated, multilayered performances that give caustic immediacy to much of this potentially melodramatic showdown between a neurotic aristocrat and her opportunistic servant. Gleefully obliterating Strindberg's naturalism, the production's garish sets, original pop songs, and unrelenting jumbled anachronisms provide illuminating aesthetic collisions with the text for the first half of this 70-minute show. But as the evening wears on, the conceptual clutter piles up: roller blades, walkie-talkies, flashlights, and sides of beef obscure the underlying human story"