Review: The Creditors

The Creditors
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
19 November 2010
Red Stitch
to 18 December

Is love always a competition? Would we really rather that our exes thought we were happy than to actually be happy? August Strindberg had three wives and if his art is any reflection of his life, then there's no wonder that a long quiet monogamous life wasn't for him.

This new version of Strinberg's The Creditors by UK playwright David Grieg was commissioned by the Donmar Warehouse in 2008. The adaption maintains the formality a of Strindberg's language, but ensures that we can't dismiss the behaviour and emotional impact as a reflection of its time. Couples still hide behind decorum to rip shreds off each other and no one fights as dirty as someone trying to ruin love, apart from someone trying to make their lover love them better.

Whilst waiting for his beloved wife Telka (Kat Stewart) to return, crippled artist Adolph (Brett Cousins) takes counsel from the older and wiser Gustav (Dion Mills). Gustav insists that Adolph has been emasculated by his wife's independence and her writing career and can only regain his masculinity through sexual abstinence. It all makes complete sense to the sensitive artist, especially as the gorgeous Telka still flirts with no regard to his manhood. On her return Telka isn't keen on the idea and wonders why her husband wants to know too much about her ex.

In Strindberg's world, relationships are about personal gain and his characters show the side of love that is governed by ego, jealousy and control; where winning is far more important than how they play the game.  We all like to think that we're better than that – but I dare anyone to not recognise a moment or a motivation with regret.

The Creditors is an actors play. Each role is a gift for the cast who relish every syllable. This results in three different performances and as each character is so unaware of the feelings of other people this strengthens their isolation and leaves little room for authentic connection. If we felt too sorry for any of them or believed they could be happy, The Creditors might be too painful to laugh at . 

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Mag and Bag

Mag and Bag
La Mama
7 November 2010
La Mama Courthouse

Mag and Bag live in a suburb that's still so working class that the tins are home brand, the Herald Scum St Mary poster has pride of place on the bar fridge and being called a Liberal is far worse than be called a cunt.

Barry Dickens wrote Mag and Bag in the late 70s and, even with some hip Latham and Abbot jokes, it's comforting to to see that little changes. There still nothing as good as cup of tea, curlers still create the best hair dos and bloody nature strips always have to be mowed. And I for one am looking forward to being a nutty old lady whose language will make the neighbours blush.

In a gorgeously designed house of chicken wire and op shop paintings, are two old women who have no one left to fight with. Like grotesque panto dames, they bicker, fight and abuse each other with a verbal dexterity only outweighed by their love. If it's true that we can really only be total cows to the people who love us, then Mag and Bag are BFFs... or they they believe that fighting is better than being old and forgotten. It's easy to laugh at swearing old ladies, but Camelina Di Gulglielmo and Maria Portsi let us see the regret behind the laughs.

Director Laurence Strangio (who directed Jackie Smith's The Flood last year) again captures the playwright's voice with an authenticity that lets us see the characters with the love Dickens had creating these two old horrors. So even if we might not want them as neighbours, watching them is a laugh-out-loud joy.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.