I can think of very few Off-West End theatres that could lure an acting trio of this calibre. All seasoned veterans of stage and screens both big and small, this marks the first time all three have appeared together since TV’s The Jewel in the Crown in 1984. They bring an air of sophisticated savagery to August Strindberg’s insidious and bitter drama of two men and the woman caught between them.
Directed with invisible flair by Tom Littler, the OT’s artistic director, this adaptation by Howard Brenton (premiered at Jermyn Street theatre in 2019) rings with authenticity (“Life is rich with reasons to be miserable”) while ensnaring you in its web.
A beleaguered artist Adolf (Farrell) is being encouraged by his recently acquired friend Gustaf (Dance) to question his artistic bankruptcy and the role that his wife Tekla (James) may have played in his decline. He infers that Tekla’s rising success as a writer and Adolf’s ill health is a result of psychological vampirism. Not so much a dance of death as a dance of deceit, it plays with expectations and half truths like a thriller even if we guess from the start who is doing what to whom and why.
Brenton and Littler dial down the melodrama and even bring a measure of humour to the early exchanges as Dance toys with Farrell like a cat with a half-dead mouse, alleviating Strindberg’s industrial strength angst and rendering the dark stuff more effective as a consequence.
The encounter takes place in a seaside hotel familiar to all three (shades of Coward’s Private Lives) and the swish of waves and occasional cry of seagulls, as well as the pastel furnishings, are a breezy counterpoint to the diabolical drama taking place inside it.
I hardly need add that all three are consummate performers – the impeccably tailored Dance circles his prey like a cross between Iago and Mephistofilis as he dismantles Tekla’s reputation to her gullible husband; Farrell is jittery and uncertain, buoying himself up with hope that his shift from painting to sculpture will cure him of his funk. James is kittenish and playful to begin with, showing unexpected reserves of bewilderment and hurt when accused of infidelity. The embodiment of refinement and dignity, James is as close to an ageing, flirtatious minx as Uxbridge is to Uranus and has to work a little harder than the others to disguise her own natural qualities.
If a few opening night nerves were evident, it is still a rare treat to see three terrific actors at close quarters in a beautifully realised production of one of Strindberg’s finest plays. And hats off to the maker of the small sculpture of the reclining nude that delivers an erotic charge that, once revealed, lingers throughout the play.
CREDITORS IS AT THE ORANGE TREE THEATRE, RICHMOND, TO OCTOBER 11
