How’s your credit?
WCC sells Strindberg
by Christopher Key
August Strindberg doesn’t sell a lot of seats at the local community theatres. All the more reason to be grateful that Whatcom Community College has a drama department unafraid to tackle the playwrights who can make audiences squirm and laugh at the same time.
Swedish-born Strindberg was one of the leading proponents of naturalism in the theatre, a radical concept in the late 19th century. It may have shocked audiences used to Victorian melodrama, but it has served to make his works relevant into the 21st century. Creditors is just as fresh and pertinent today as it was in 1888. I doubt Strindberg would bat an eye at the pre-nuptial agreements that are so intrinsic to our post-modern marital arrangements. Indeed, given his somewhat cynical view of romance, he might have embraced them and possibly have saved himself a lot of trouble. Look up his bio.
The WCC production of Creditors takes place in one of my favorite venues, the Black Box Theatre at the Syre Student Center. Its intimate dimensions are perfect for this in-your-face examination of how people confuse relationships with financial transactions. It’s all about who gives and who takes, who wins and who loses, who charges too much interest and who doesn’t charge enough.
The characters risk too much in an overextended market and don’t risk enough on conservative investments. Sound familiar? They suddenly find themselves in an emotional recession and are desperately seeking someone to blame it on when they should be looking in a mirror. And there are no bailouts coming from the government.
Director Gerry Large deserves enormous credit for guiding his young actors through this emotional bull market and the resulting downturn. It is very tempting for inexperienced actors to pull out all the stops too soon and have nowhere left to go when it’s time for the coda. Large conducts them like an orchestral maestro and makes sure they don’t peak too soon.
Trevor Van Houten has an unusual gift for physicality and uses it to maximum effect in his portrayal of Adolph, whose bodily handicaps effectively reflect his emotional ones. Shu-ling Zhao has demonstrated her enormous range in many productions and expands on that as Adolph’s manipulative wife.
I have reviewed both these actors before and am therefore unsurprised, but delighted, at their continued development. Jared Greene, however, was an unknown quantity for me. I wondered if he had the chops to play on the same field as these two proven actors. He does, in spades. Not only does he hold his own against these superb actors, he carves out his own niche as a player to be reckoned with. I was particularly impressed with his emotional control when it was needed and his lack of control when that was called for. Greene is yet another example of the amazing talent that makes the WCC drama program so impressive.
Shu-ling Zhao and Jared Greene negotiate an emotional transaction in the Whatcom Community College production of August Strindberg's Creditors.
Strindberg’s play is totally dependent on words, with very little physical activity. This is a particularly difficult challenge for actors because they have to sell every word. They do and I bought every one.
Creditors plays March 4 – 7, 7:30 p.m., at Whatcom Community College’s Syre Student Center Black Box Theatre. Tickets are $5 at the door.
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