Strindberg's Miss Julie opens at the Rose Theatre on October 8 as part of the Behind Closed Doors season.    The play is August Strindberg's best-known work.  Set in the late 1880s, it tells the tragic love story of the daughter of a Swedish count, Miss Julie, and her father's servant.    Daniel Betts, who plays the servant, Jean, says:  "Although it was written in the 19th century, the play essentially tells a universal story about a man and a woman and their relationship. They have a deep attraction, but they are confused about what they want, from each other and from life. As a result, they really tear into each other. The play shows the fierceness of attraction and lust and I think people will watch it and think: 'I know that'.      "It also deals with the question of power and class, and that's the real struggle of the play.  It was written in the time of Marx and there is a sense that the nobility are in the twilight of their time and that the future is about the working classes. The play questions whether it is possible for someone who is born a peasant to get on the world.

  "Jean has dragged himself up from the gutter.  He can interact seamlessly with people of the highest class and could become something extraordinary.  But when his master returns in the morning, Jean goes to pieces.  The weight of generations, decades, centuries of class struggle comes crushing down on him.     "It's a great part to play as an actor because you have to dig deep.  Strindberg doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve - he's much deeper, darker and more complicated."    as well as starring in Miss Julie, Betts will also be appearing in Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce at the Rose, as part of the theatre's first ever repertory season.

  "It's going to be bonkers," says Betts. "We've been rehearsing Bedroom Farce in the mornings and Miss Julie in the afternoons.

  "But Stephen Unwin, the artistic director, has created an incredible atmosphere in the rehearsal room and it's a fantastic place to work.    "It's a great opportunity.  If you are playing the same part every night for eleven months, it can become very boring.  I'm getting the opportunity to have a go at not just one great play, but two. So if I feel exhausted at the end of it, well what better way to feel exhausted?"   

  Miss Julie, Rose Theatre, Kingston, October 8 - November 28, 7:30pm and some matinees, £7-£29.50.  Call 0871 230 1552 or visit rosetheatrekingston.org for tickets and information.