Marriage and Manipulation in American Players' 'Creditors'

By Aaron Conklin, Madison Magazine Arts & Culture

November 15, 2017

If you’re watching carefully, Jim DeVita almost tips his hand in the opening moment of American Players Theatre’s production of “Creditors” (playing through Nov. 19 at the Touchstone Theater). His character, the nattily dressed Gustav, is staring at the back of the shaggy and frail artist/sculptor Adolph (Marcus Truschinski), and oh, the look he gives him. It’s a carefully controlled and dangerous mix of curiosity, resentment and wonder, like a cat that’s contemplating the various ways he’s going to disembowel and devour the mouse he’s just spotted. In a minute, Adolph is going to begin praising Gustav as the mentor who’s given his work new meaning and spark; the truth is, he has no idea what’s about to happen to him.

Taut manipulation is the name of the game in August Strindberg’s play, a quality that makes it both a nice fit for the closer confines of the Touchstone and an even better fit for the cast director Maria Aitken expertly gets to play with here. In a play where a shrewdly sowed hint of doubt and uncertainty grows to Herculean proportions in a heartbeat, having DeVita, Truschinski and Tracy Michelle Arnold to set against each other leads to no shortage of fascinating dramatic duels. 

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