Review: Julie Sits Waiting

(Photo credit: Jeremy Mimnagh)

The Familiar Unconventional
by Christian Baines

Self-professed ‘dirty opera,’ Julie Sits Waiting brings the contemporary story of adultery by way of online dating to the chamber opera stage. Familiar? Yes, but also unconventional in its execution. Julie (Fides Krucker), married to a police officer and Mick (Richard Armstrong), an Anglican priest, make for an unusual tryst, one that carries the weight of both characters’ advanced years. These are not the sexy adulterers of sleazy pulp novels, and that sense of realism sits the work uncomfortably outside the bounds of the familiar. That is, arguably, right where this story needs to be.

The show is perhaps more a sensory experience than a narrative one, more interested in riding through Julie and Mick’s journey of lust and fear than making sense of it. It’s rare to see such a rich collaboration between designers in this kind of piece, and in Julie Sits Waiting, their work gives the audience a much greater sense of the characters’ experience than they might glean from the libretto alone. Yes, we’ve seen visual tropes like broken shards/blades on many a stage before, but combined with Jeremy Mimnagh’s surreal video and Louis Dufort’s evocative, disturbing score, it’s an effective setting.

we’re left wanting a greater sense of their shared struggle

Krucker and Armstrong carry much of the piece with vocal techniques ranging from chant to extended-voice. Armstrong’s confessional sequence in particular, tracks the depths of the work as it recovers from a somewhat unsteady opening to bring an almost biblical context to its ‘adultery as violence’ theme. 

However, the show has assigned itself the difficult task of turning an afternoon’s illicit encounter into a struggle for its characters’ very souls, wrestling with the question of whether these people are inherently wicked, or merely fulfilling their own desires the only reckless way they know how. That level of gravitas never quite catches hold, mostly because the piece does little to explain Julie’s infidelity or attraction to Mick in the first place. Her marriage seems vaguely unsatisfying, her relationship with her daughter not all she’d like, and these are credible reasons for her actions. But to invite damnation? Librettist Tom Walmsley seems aware of this disconnect, with Mick acknowledging that adultery is a sin ‘forgiven every day.’ And so, we’re left wanting a greater sense of their shared struggle. Mick in particular feels under-explored. We get neither a sense of why Julie’s so infatuated with him, or what’s driven him to such callous acts in the first place.

While these aspects remain under-developed, the piece is still a feast for the eyes and ears, worth experiencing for its stars’ vocal work alone. It’s also a terrific example of multimedia being used to enhance and drive opera forward, while never usurping its core.

Julie Sits Waiting plays at Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace until September 23.