Miss Julie (first produced in 1889) is an important play in the history of modern theater, one that demonstrated a thoroughgoing naturalism when such a thing was still controversial, and that also brought to the stage a daring degree of sexual candor. In its tale of a young aristocratic woman who lusts after her father’s valet, it gave author August Strindberg a chance to weigh in on class and gender conflicts, and to create two memorable characters as notable for their contradictions as for their consistencies.

The good news for local theatergoers is that the current freeFall Theatre version of Miss Julie is first-class in every way: acting, directing, set and costume design. The bad news is, the play itself can, to moderns, feel windy and overlong (even at 90 minutes), and the class issues especially can feel irrelevant to a contemporary American (we may be a plutocracy, but we’re not an aristocracy).

Still, the pluses outdo the minuses in this fine production, directed impeccably by Eric Davis. If you don’t mind the occasional longueurs, it’s worth your attention.

This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2011.