What: Creditors
Where and when: Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, September 2-23
When actor Keith Adams read the script for August Strindberg's 1888 play Creditors, he laughed aloud and wondered if this was an appropriate response. Here was a play about the intolerable cruelty of the sexes, where jealously and obsession, dishonesty, treachery and vengeance pushed one another around as the main themes. So far, so universal but rather than being stuffily Victorian, Adams found this particular take on the battle of the sexes light years ahead of its time and, in parts, very amusing.
Intense drama was shot through with inky black humour, the dialogue was "cracking" and it featured a strong female lead at ease with her sexuality and not afraid to tell it like it was - or still is.
Asked by theatre luminaries Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Lawrence to appear alongside them in an Auckland production of Creditors, Adams telephoned Lawrence to ask if he was reading the script right.
"I thought, 'If there are times when this is supposed to make you laugh, then I've got it but if not, I'm not the right person for this gig'."
Assured by Lawrence that he had the right take on it, he couldn't wait to get started. But it wasn't all laughs for Adams, perhaps best known for tickling funny bones in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. He admits to squirming when he saw his own behaviour reflected back.
"I recognised myself at my most manipulative, when a relationship has been going wrong and the power games we are all capable of playing in order to win a situation."
He also admits he'd never heard of Strindberg, a playwright who once got mentioned in the same breath as his better-known contemporaries Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekov. While Strindberg wrote numerous plays, novels and short stories, he has the dubious honour of becoming one of the most influential dramatists whose name few people recognise outside of one work, Miss Julie.
"Everyone does Ibsen and Chekov - we certainly did at drama school - but I found myself thinking, 'Why didn't we do Strindberg?' He's great and so funny," says Adams.
The dark dichotomy of humour and drama, the uncomfortable questions raised and the complexity of its three characters attracted Lawrence to Creditors when he first saw it performed in London around five years ago.
Set in a seaside hotel, two men - apparently strangers to one another - meet. Led by the older Gustav (Lawrence), the younger Adolf (Adams) begins a candid discussion about his relationship with his free-thinking wife, Tekla (Ward-Lealand). He is younger than her; she has been married once before. Gustav seems keen to lend a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on but is Gustav as altruistic as he seems?
Always hunting for material to challenge actors and their audiences, Lawrence filed Creditors away in the back of his mind thinking it was provocative, interesting and surprisingly modern.
Last year, when he saw a production at London's hip Donmar Warehouse directed by Alan Rickman and starring Anna Chancellor, he figured the time was right for a local version. It was also staged in New York last year.
"It is very satisfying to be in a well-written play with great dialogue," says Lawrence. "It is an intriguing piece in that there are twists and turns and complexities which trigger things in me. I am sure a lot of people will relate to it whether they like it or not."
Ward-Lealand goes further. Having appeared in more than 100 theatrical productions, she describes Creditors as one of her favourites. "I don't like plays where everything is laid out for me. I like to be swung around in my feelings and this certainly does that.
"People shouldn't be frightened of Creditors because it's a 19th century piece and they have certain ideas about classical dramas. It's very accessible, it's surprisingly contemporary and it's got a great cast."
