If ever a show was devised to persuade millennials and Gen Z that theatre isn’t for fuddy-duddies, The House Party – at Kingston’s Rose until March 22 – is it.

Brash, bold and boisterous, Laura Lomas’s play (go for a wee beforehand, it runs without an interval for 1hr 40mins) is billed as a reworking of August Strindberg’s Victorian tale of class rivalry, Miss Julie.

But you need to know nothing of 130-year-old Swedish drama to get to grips with this modern-day tussle-of-love between best mates Synnøve Karlsen (Julie, pictured above) and Sesley Hope (Christine) as they toy with the affections of Jon (Tom Lewis).

Created in Chichester, where it premiered this time last year with a different cast, it centres round Julie’s 18^th birthday party and the drunken pairing-up that ensues.

It is directed by Holly Race Roughan, who has set on the Rose open stage a dynamic, fast-moving production, mainly focused on the party room, with the kind of high-powered choreography (Scott Graham is movement director) usually reserved for top-end modern ballet.

It’s not for the faint-hearted, and it’s certainly not for anyone who feels overly sensitive about dogs. But I’ll not spoil the surprises.

What it remains, deep down, is an exploration of how besties’ relationships thrive and dip depending on mood, events and love rivalry, especially in cases where one (Julie) is rich and entitled, while the other (Christine) is anything but. Dreams and aspirations can be life’s cruellest crumbs of hope.

Whether it’s been decades since you attended a teenage party, or you’re going to one next weekend, there are messages and moments to take from this show.

But director Roughan needs to urge her cast to project better, and more consistently. Audience members towards the back of the stalls and circle could be overheard grumbling as they left that some lines tailed off, some were muffled, some were spoken into the set and others simply never generated the required volume to start with.

Joshua Pharo is lighting designer, Giles Thomas created the music and sound, and the production (designated for 14+ only) by Headlong Theatre with Frantic Assembly blazes a trail that tamer, more sedate showmakers will struggle to emulate.

www.rosetheatre.org