whether The House Party is still clearly based on Miss Julie?
Yes and no.
I saw today's matinee and LOVED it for it's thrilling vibrancy, it's on point dialogue, its brilliant performances and its thoughtful coda, but its the least Strindberg Miss Julie adaptation I've seen.
This plays super youthful, with Olivia Rodrigo's "Obsessed," looping at the start, setting the tone. My sister is desperately trying to source scarce tickets to Rodrigo at the O2 this weekend for my 12 year old niece because "all [her] friends are going" lol. And while I wouldn't let a 12 year old near this show (because Strindberg), I'd say this is a super first theatre experience for late teens, as it's basically a party from start to finish, with Headlong and Frantic Assembly collaborating to create utter urgency in the staging, and they might learn theatre can be exciting rather than "boring," as some may suspect from behind their smartphones filled with TikTok.
Some spoilers follow. . .
Yes, this does walk through some of Strindberg's plot points (one key incident is all him and another key incident is mostly him) but the characters doing the walking don't feel like Strindberg to me.
The two female principals are besties whose friendship is challenged by class differences, whereas in the Strindberg, class meant there could be no such friendship in the first place.
For me this feels less like Strindberg, and more like a female version of Laura Wade's "Posh," with only one posh person, behaving badly, modified by Polly Stenham's massive empathy for posh people's problems.
The legacy of Strindberg is the weakest thing about the play, with his plot points stretching credulity in this setting.
But the authentic youthful dialogue is on fire, and the friendship setup is uber-endearing, with Nadia Parkes' Julie so much dimmer than Strindberg's Miss Julie that you can't help but laugh at every silly outburst. She is like the dimbulb, Lisa Kudrow's Michele, in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion," thinking that her dad sleeping with someone her age is "actually incest," and "Capricorns die more often than other star signs," and, like in that movie, it falls to Rachelle Diedericks' Romy-like ultra-capable friend, Christine, to reign her in. By the time the two are doing their girly dance, you love them both.
But then Josh Finan's Scouser-with-a-Cleaner-mother, Jon, comes between them. . .
The actors are uniformly fantastic.
Rachelle Diedericks was the most memorable of the testifying teens in the National's "Our Generation," and more recently, she was the one you empathised with, trapped in Southwark Playhouse's "The Walworth Farce." Here she both testifies and is trapped, and is once again the most empathetic character.
Josh Finan gave a towering performance in Southwark Playhouse's "Shook," and even challenged Alex Jennings for most compelling performance in the Bridge Theatre's "The Southbury Child," and here, his working class Scouser on the make, Jon is compelling again.
And Nadia Parkes, who was new to me, is phenomenal as a dimbulb Miss Julie with roiling believable teen emotions who veers between loving friendship and hateful jealousy on a dime.
There are tons of extras that make the party scenes incredibly dynamic.
The worst parts of the show are when Parkes' character is forced to act out Strindberg's psychologically sophisticated plot horrors, which this play's set-up doesn't really earn.
Overall though, this show has performances and dynamism through the roof! 4 stars from me.
