Printed on the wall at the entrance to Actors Theater of Louisville's Bingham Theater, where his Creditors inaugurated a "Free Theater" series of significant plays, were these stark words of August Strindberg: "Motto: Never get married! for you can...live your life out without knowing to whom you are married." And, oh, how this psychologically-penetrating play, stunningly performed by its three principals, drives home that caveat. The war between the sexes and its tragic consequences are strikingly illuminated as husband, ex-husband, and wife play out their seductive love/hate/manipulate games. Strindberg's fast-paced dialogue, laced with comedic bile, is surprisingly hilarious as gallows humor often is. Flirtatious Tekla (Barbara Gulan) has deserted her former husband Gustav (William McNulty) and married Adolf, a painter (Will Bond), who falls victim to the vengeful Gustav's Iago-like suggestions that Tekla does not love him and is unfaithful. Gustav, using an assumed name, doesn't reveal he was the husband Tekla left. For Gustav it's pay-back time, thus the play's title. In a lacerating exchange with Tekla, he tells her she stole his honor and the only way he could get it back was by robbing her of hers; i.e., destroying her marriage.
If other choices in the Free Theater series are as superb as Creditors, Louisville audiences will have yet another reason to be grateful for producing director Jon Jory's 31-year stay at Actors Theater.
