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Through the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Arts Program, senior English and Biology major Kelly Chuang directed a production of Miss Julie, by August Strindberg. The play featured senior Rebecca McGivney (Miss Julie), senior Mac Schwerin (Jean), and sophomore Alanna Olken (Kristin), with set design by senior Erin Deda. The production was for one night only, on March 12th at 8 pm. Below is an interview with Miss Julie Director Kelly Chuang.
RADAR REDUX: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your theater background.
Kelly Chuang: I actually didn’t start theater until I came to college, and I didn’t expect to either. I was walking with a friend looking for the Barn (JHU Theater Department), and we accidentally and literally walked into auditions in Mattin Center. I got cast in a part, and that’s when it all started. Although I haven’t acted since freshman year, I’ve directed and written a couple of plays. Most of my background is, interestingly enough, in the technical aspects of a production. I definitely prefer the behind the scenes kind of action in theater (writing, directing, tech, etc.) than acting – it’s a different kind of anxiety.
RR: What is the Homewood Arts Program and how did you come to direct this play?
K.C.: The Homewood Arts Program is a program that promotes the arts (in all its possible forms) on the Johns Hopkins University campus. As I’m sure you’ve heard, this university isn’t particularly known as an “arts-heavy” campus, and this program attempts to remedy that perception by allowing students of all backgrounds and interests to come together to produce art. Example, I’m a Biology and English major with a fairly busy academic schedule, so I don’t have a great deal of time to take theater classes, and in all honesty, it’s hard for me to bring my biology background into theater. The Homewood Arts Program senior certificate was an excellent opportunity for me to pursue theater on a scale that I didn’t have the chance to pursue during my four years here.
RR: Can you give us a brief overview of the play?
K.C.: Miss Julie is a naturalistic tragedy that, in my mind, embodies a very simple but dark interaction between a man and woman – they meet, fall into the passion of the moment and have sex, realize their mistake, try to fix it but realize they can’t, and then proceed to destroy one another. I suppose to be more specific, it is about an upper class woman who sleeps with a servant on midsummer’s night, and who then realizes that she has “fallen” from her class as a result of her loose behavior. She loses her edge because of that moment of passion, but damn it, she’s not going out without a fight. That’s why the play ends on such a tragic note (her suicide) because it couldn’t have ended any other way.
K.C.: What drew you to Strindberg’s Miss Julie?
It’s very sexy, both the plot and the dialogue. The intensity and emotional range of each character (Miss Julie and Jean) is astounding – when explaining this to my actors/actresses, I told them that each emotion is felt in its purest form with these characters, and its felt quickly. Within one monologue alone, a character will go from desperate to angry to proud, back to desperate. At the same time though, you have all these complexities running beneath – gender and class issues, prehistory of the characters, etc. – which give the play a fullness. You also still have structure, so even though Miss Julie and Jean are everywhere and in chaos, there is a reference point (The Count and Kristin).
RR: What was your vision for this production?
K.C.: We had limited time and resources, so my goal was to produce this tragedy and convey that level of intensity and complexity of the characters – the play captures the moment when people fall apart, but they do it prettily, in the sense that the language is beautiful and even the hate is fascinating to watch. There are also a lot of monologues, and I wanted the audience to see that range of emotion in all those words and stay engaged. It’s difficult to do that (maintain that intensity) without boring/tiring an audience or making them think that Miss Julie is just one kind of crazy. I wanted to do the characters justice.
RR: What is your favorite moment in the play?
K.C.: If forced to choose, I’d choose the ending. It’s where you hit that epiphany of how much more dignified she is than him, and how much more she sticks to her guns.
RR: How did you and set designer Erin Deda decide on the Arellano set and how did this set reflect your vision for the production?
K.C.: Erin and I met a couple of times over set design – I’m pretty utilitarian, but I wanted to have a lot of white on stage to contrast with the darker emotions running through the dialogue, but I wanted to keep it subtle. After all, Miss Julie and Jean are falling apart secretly in the kitchen, an enclosed space away from their external world, so it can’t just be a normal kitchen. At the same time, however, it is a kitchen, so it had to look cozy, like people would use the space and live there. If you noticed, that’s why we played with light shades (cold harsh lighting, shadows, warmer more yellow lighting, etc.).
RR: How is theater like Biology?
K.C.: I think I like theater (and in this sense, I mean the written play) a lot because it deals with human interaction and the causal effect that one being can have on another. In terms of the production, just as biology has a good grasp on the reality of systems and how hard it can push on those boundaries, theater understands its limits before pushing on them. It’s hard to get lost in the biology, but subjects like theater and English remind us why we study sciences at all.
RR: What do you like about theater? How is it different from film?
K.C.: Oh man, film is great too. I think they’re pretty comparable or equally amazing, just because they’re so different and each brings something different to the table. Theater is a lot more in the moment though – I kind of like that anxiety that comes with not really knowing how the production is going to be received/will it go up successfully or not. It’s not like you can do several takes of scenes on opening night. And the intensity of Miss Julie live on stage is just not the same as on film (and I watched a few of the film productions of this).
Tags: August Strindberg, Homewood Arts Program, Johns Hopkins, Kelly Chuang, Miss Julie
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