Creditors
REVIEW by Willard Manus
The prolific
Scottish playwright David Grieg has taken August Strindberg's 1889 drama
CREDITORS and turned it into a mordant and modern-feeling psychological
thriller. As directed by David Trainer and acted with Swiss watch-like
precision by Burt Grinstead, Heather Anne Prete and Jack Stehlin, CREDITORS
deals with the battle between evil and innocence in the lounge of a Swedish
seaside hotel (superb set by Thomas A. Walsh).
The battle doesn't reveal its true nature at first, beginning as it does with a desultory conversation between Adolf (Grinstead), a naive and crippled young artist, and Gustav (Stehlin), a saturnine college professor. Slowly, it becomes clear that Gustav's intent is to manipulate Adolf's feelings, especially where love is concerned. In an Iago-like way he begins to turn Adolf against his wife, Tekla--make him doubt her faithfulness and devotion.
We meet Tekla in the next scene, in which it is revealed that she and
Gustav were once married, and that she dumped him for Adolf. Still seething
with jealousy and resentment, Gustav has come to even the score between
them, exact his revenge, in a cynical and heartless way.
This kind
of domestic dance of death is Strindberg's specialty, ofcourse. It isn't
easy to watch CREDITORS, but it's impossible to deny its hypnotic and
stunning power.
(Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. through Dec. 15,2013. Call 310-477-2055 ext. 2 or visit odysseytheate.com)