The House Party – Rose Theatre Kingston, London

Writer: Laura Lomas

Director: Holly Race Roughan

August Strindberg wrote Miss Julie in the late nineteenth century to demonstrate Social Darwinism in action, a deathly struggle between the dregs of the aristocracy and the rising tide of the working class. It’s been a template for a lot of re-writes, and the latest addition to the canon is Laura Lomas’s take on struggles not so much between classes as between the haves and the have-nots, between young people whose financial security and the schools they go to pretty much guarantee a place at a fashionable university, and people whose parents and schooling guarantee nothing much. It’s a less fundamental struggle, but maybe more personally relevant to the audience of the Rose Theatre in Kingston.

Headlong Company’s artistic director Holly Race Roughan directs a pertinent, timely take on Strindberg’s original play. She brings it up to date and makes the party look like a party happening in the 2020s, all shots and strobes and frenetic dancing to music that is mostly bass notes. Everyone is filming everyone on their phones, and there is absolutely nowhere to be private. This makes betraying your bff with their boyfriend a problem.

Synnøve Karlsen is the wild child Julie: unhappy, uncertain, inclined to do things spontaneously and then giggle in the wreckage. Karlsen does a remarkable job of presenting an indulged but feckless rich girl, necking vodka and dressing down into a baggy tee-shirt and tights for the party, tossing aside a glitzier frock as she prepares to entertain.

Sesley Hope is Christine, a friend-cum-maid who does ‘sensible’ in a society of thrill-seekers. Tom Lewis is Jon, Christine’s boyfriend, Julie’s dad’s assistant, possessor of one good Ben Sherman shirt and a sense of entitlement to success. It’s a hard part to play with any sympathy – Jon seems like a self-centred operator using pliant women in his remorseless ascent, but Lewis makes him more baffled than venal, and that works well in the whirlwind of fecklessness everyone in this world inhabits.

There is a coda bolted on which somewhat undermines the tragic logic of Strindberg’s story, a confected happy-ish ending that doesn’t feel entirely necessary, but maybe that’s a nod to the reduced stakes of rebellion in the 2020s.

Headlong productions specialise in working with young cast members, and this is a fine example of that aspect of their work. They also utilise physical acting to powerful effect, and the beautifully choreographed eruptions of party people into the private hell of Julie and her friends is the best thing in a very credible production. The slightly muffled soundscape and the hard-to-hear crosstalk are irksome, but the movement is wonderful. Miss Julie the ballet?

Runs until 22 March 2025 and then continues to tour