STAGE REVIEW : STRINDBERG’S ‘MISS JULIE’ RENDERED AT SECOND STAGE

Where to go for a play concerned about something beyond the living-room walls that also has poetry in its veins? It’s late summer and the pickings are slim, so we must settle on a professional but uninspired rendering of August Strindberg’s “Miss Julie” at Second Stage.

Director Robert Burgos has opted for a more physical than usual “Julie” while allowing a lot of Waiver cracks to appear, such as underrehearsed actors and an inchoate Julie. Cynics could smirk that this is Hollywood Strindberg: all appearances and set (Dave Robinson has designed a fine rustic, very Swedish kitchen), no thought.

Well, not quite. The production does exude an atmosphere of ennui, which is in perfect harmony with Strindberg’s world of collapsing ideals and classes. And Helen Wilson’s striking performance as Kristin suggests a working woman thoroughly caught in the beliefs of a Christian 19th Century, in utter contrast to Miss Julie’s amoral drift.

But Annabel Brooks’ Julie is so casually contemporary and vocally careless, lacking any fresh view of this woman’s strange simultaneous needs for liberation and slavery, that it creates a fatal void in the middle of the show.

Not for a moment are we convinced that this Julie is the product of a confused upper-class, free-thinking upbringing, nor do we catch a glimpse of her climactic awareness of her fate.

The erotic tension is palpable, but only because Cyril O’Reilly’s Jean skillfully parries each of Brooks’ thrusts. He too seems generally out of his depth, save in those moments when he sees himself as rising in the world and Julie as falling. This is a Jean who relishes the competitive edge.

Two silly elements do further damage here. Billy Romanus’ weak electronic-sounding music is as far flung from Strindberg as is Brooks’ performance. And a dance interlude (with terpsichores Cate Caplin and Nick Garfield) is rudely plopped in the middle of the drama. It’s bad dance and worse drama.

Performances at 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays at 5 and 8 p.m., ends Sept. 21; (213) 462-9707.