Molotov cocktail of race, class and sex

MIES Julie, a South African adaptation of the classic play Miss Julie, arrives in Singapore armoured in critical praise. Having toured London, New York and other art capitals in the past two years, it has received near-universal acclaim for the acting, direction and script. Here in Singapore for a three-week engagement, it's not hard to see why it garnered such raves - though it's not entirely without caveats.

The original play Miss Julie by August Strindberg was produced in 1888, and was extremely controversial for its time. Its frank depiction of a one-night dalliance between an aristocratic woman named Julie and her manservant Jean attracted wide conservative outrage.

The idea that an upper-class woman would stoop to seduce a man beneath her, only to have him coerce her into committing suicide, was socially and morally unacceptable then. Today, students as young as 17 all over the world can be found studying the play in their Literature and Drama classes. (This writer was one of them.)