‘Strindberg on Film’ Hits Pay Dirt

LACMA’s “Strindberg on Film” series commences today in Bing Theater at 8 p.m. with “The Creditor,” a 1987 filming of a stage production of a one-act 1888 play updated to the ‘30s. So timeless is the material, so impeccable its ensemble playing and so deft is Stefan Bohm’s direction that we soon forget we’re watching that much-maligned form, the “filmed play.”

The single setting is a resort hotel veranda where a dashing, virile middle-aged man, Gustav (Keve Hjelm), has come to wreak revenge on his former wife Tekla (Bibi Andersson) by turning her current husband, Adolf (Tomas Bolme), an ailing, unprepossessing-looking sculptor, against her.

Strindberg remains ever the master of ferocious, cruel and destructive love-hate relationships between men and women. All that Tekla has really done is to wound the vanity of her ex by depicting him as an idiot in her latest novel, but it’s enough to unleash in Gustav the most diabolical tactics to undermine the jealous and naive Adolf.

One wonders if audiences a century ago were as sympathetic to Tekla as they are likely to be today. She does not appear until nearly halfway through the production, and as so beautifully played by Andersson, who appeared in so many Ingmar Bergman films, that she easily captivates us, not just by her elegance, but by her honesty and forthrightness.

Andersson’s Tekla is a liberated woman way ahead of her time, not pretending to be a saint but hardly deserving of what her ex-husband attempts.

Playing with “The Creditor” is Alf Sjoberg’s classic 1951 film “Miss Julie,” starring Anita Bjork.

LACMA is also launching this week, on Friday, another series, “Directed by Douglas Sirk,” a homage to the stylish master at wringing meaning from heady melodrama.