Mies Julie in the Karoo: a stunning metaphore captures the difficult transformation to Post Apartheid society
Photo:Telegraph.co.uk Bongile Mantsai and Hilda Cronje.
Yael Farber is an extraordinary artist of the stage! Recognizing how Strindberg’s Miss Julie has established a brilliant framework for all forms of power relations, Farber transforms the play into a metaphor of contemporary post-apartheid South Africa where class, land rights, sexual tension, ethnic, social, political and cultural differences clash head on in a context of raging anger and lust, setting the background for a drama of tragic self-destruction.
The site of Farber’s version of the play, is the kitchen of a Boer homestead, located in the desert region of Karoo, where generations of racial and class struggle have not yet come to an end , in spite of the new political situation in the country. On this farm, where Julie (Hilda Cronje) lives with her father, the master of this land, she and John (Bongile Mantsai) the son of the master’s housekeeper, perform an intense and sexually charged death ritual which tears apart any form of “truth and reconciliation” that one might hope for.