Invective against “concept” staging flies around the critical world like paper in a high wind.The invective may often be alarmist and misplaced, but at its core lies a deep frustration. So many mistakes in contemporary productions arise from the pitying belief that a modern audience will not understand a playwright’s intention unless locations are laboriously updated. That condescension leads to literal-mindedness, which leads to deadly theater.

Luckily, in the current production of “Miss Julie” downtown, a grievous mistake in concept can not undo the work’s original power, nor undermine a smoking chemistry. Aided by a crackerjack performance that blows past the conceptual restraints,this “Miss Julie”still steams up the chilly Cherry Lane.

On a hot midsummer night, the confused, liberally brought-up Countess Julie (Mimi Bilinski) plays dangerously with a valet’s affections. Jean, a bounder with a nasty cruel streak, allows himself to be seduced. Once he has her socially ruined, Jean finishes the destruction – by dawn, she is almost mad.The interplay of sexual and class politics has made the play a classic; the image of a mind dissolving as boundaries rupture has made it an actress’s dream.

But instead of Strindberg’s country count’s estate, director Stephen Schwartz resets the action in a confused near-future. Jean (Michael Aronov) and his intended, Kristine (Opal Alladin), are Arabs slaving for a white, Western, oil-rich Miss Julie in a bombed-out Iraqi basement. Accompanying notes claim that this reveals deep resonances with current American imperialism. Instead, it only serves to muddy Truda Stockenstrom’s excellent, speakable translation.

Mr. Schwartz’s clumsy concept doesn’t preclude some lovely staging. Taking Strindberg’s themes of climbing and falling at their word, he pointedly places Ms. Bilinski on stairs or tables until she is brought low by Jean. The device may be obvious, but it leads to original and delightful positions for the two actors – Jean must chin himself up a scaffolding just to startle a giggle from her.

When she’s off-guard and in Mr. Aronov’s hands, Ms. Bilinski does a stand-up job.The excesses of madness, however, seem beyond her. She has beauty but no heft; a good middle but no finish. As her foil, Ms. Alladin does subtle, observant work as the disapproving Kristine. But it is the chilly, flirtatious, devastating Mr. Aronov’s Jean that gives the play its biting sexual edge. He manipulates and vacillates with mesmerizing attractiveness. Watching him, you can forget the hamhanded political aspirations of the play. You can even forget Jean’s own petty aspirations. You only know that his snakey charm means danger, and you cannot wait to succumb.

***

With his underground sleeper hit “The Passion of the Christ,” Mel Gibson just topped a Forbes list of powerful media pooh-bahs, despite the occasional accusation of bias. So one more finger-shaking probably won’t hurt him. How has no one complained that, amid the incessant whipping, he also found some time to throw mud at gay lifestyles? His Herod was bewilderingly camp, and Satan looked like an escapee from “Taboo.” Maybe it’s because the gay Christian contingent was busy watching Alicia Mathewson’s “Love According to Luc,” the sweet, ably made musical at the Greenwich Street Theatre.

When Luc, a young woman raised Presbyterian, goes off to Harvard Divinity School, she only means to collect a degree, then get ordained. Instead she gets a girlfriend. Coming out to the aunt who raised her is stressful enough, but when her church gets wind of her new leanings, her calling is plunged into doubt. Her funding depends on a future as a preacher, and the Presbyterians don’t have any room for gay ministers.The Church Session likes to sing, “So you’re gay! It’s OK. Come on in! We still love you” in sugary harmony, but they certainly don’t want to sponsor a queer activist.

Though the music is far too treacly to make for a real battle-anthem, in taking an unironic approach to religion the production is just a tiny bit rebellious. Wide-eyed Luc (Marissa McGowan) never questions her faith, only her diocese, and even her agnostic girlfriend respects her call to ministry. Having eight women onstage, all singing hymns and acting in religious leadership positions, they go girl-power one better. Even for a musical-theater skeptic, the unabashed fellowship onstage sounds an inspiring chord.

It is, however, a long, long chord. In the second act, Luc dithers endlessly between accepting her identity and burying her own needs.After she’s woken up in her girlfriend’s arms in the first act, her protestations to her preacher-aunt Mary (sleek heavy-hitter Joy Franz) that she’s done nothing wrong get a bit wearing. Dryly written secondary characters help through the long bits – powerhouse Uzo Aduba makes a fabulously brash activist and Victoria Mittenzwei does droll work as a butch buddy and a slinky Sappho.

Ultimately, the ladies of today seem a bit bland compared to the visitations from the past. Luc’s spiritual guide, the ghost of Anna Howard Shaw (Meara McIntyre), was one of the first women ordained in this country. She introduces some welcome specificity to the platitudes about God’s love and omni-benevolence. When she sings,”But oh the thorns before the crown of bays.The world gives lashes to its pioneers,” you know she knows whereof she speaks. And how refreshing, for the religious theatergoer beaten down by Mr. Gibson’s efforts, to be reminded that sometimes, whipping can be a metaphor.