Jen Silverman might seem an unlikely writer to adapt August Strindberg’s 1888 play for this starry production featuring Liev Schreiber as a man trying to undermine a married couple portrayed by Justice Smith and Maggie Siff. Silverman uses the pronouns they/them and, before making their Broadway debut last year with “The Roommate,” was probably best known for the bawdy, genderqueer/feminist/lesbian Off-Broadway comedy entitled “Collective Rage…” (followed by 45 more words.) Strindberg (1849-1912) had a troubled relationship with women, according to his biographer Michael Meyer, who quotes the playwright as admitting his misogyny, and translates some egregious letters ( “”Woman, being small and foolish and therefore evil, should be suppressed, like barbarians and thieves…”)
But Silverman’s changes, including a different ending, make “Creditors” kinder to its characters, and to the audience. If there is less of the explosive drama that marked previous productions, Ian Rickson’s subtle direction allows more attention to the psychological complexity of the relationships among the three characters. This “Creditors” is too intelligent for an overtly sexist perspective. If anything, the woman, Tekla, comes off the best of the three, not least because of the standout performance by Maggie Siff.
Tekla dominates the conversation in the first of the three scenes of the play, although she is not physically present. A writer, she’s attending a reading of her first novel, which is based on her relationship with her first husband. In her absence, Gustav (Schreiber) and Adi (Smith) talk mostly about her. The two men were strangers a week earlier, merely guests at the same hotel on this Swedish vacation island, but they hit it off well enough that now, as they sit in the lobby together sipping whiskey, Gustav feels at liberty to talk about Adi’s wife. Not just talk about her, criticize her for the way she treats Adi – and criticize Adi for putting up with it. Not just criticize Adi, but urge him to take action. He insinuates that Tekla’s controlling and cavalier manner is making Adi gravely ill, and that the only cure would be sexual abstinence from his wife for at least six months.
It’s way before this point that the alert listener might be suspicious about Gustav’s motives. But Adi could be the most gullible character ever written. Gustav convinces Adi to stand up to her as soon as she gets back. Gustav tells him he’ll listen from his own room. “And if you get off track, I’ll bang on the wall.”
This is a set-up for comedy, and this production of what Strindberg himself labeled a tragicomedy does allow for some low-key laughs at Gustav’s blatant manipulativeness.
In the next scene, Tekla sweeps back in after the book reading, all brightness and flirtatious energy, igniting a visible warmth between the two that diverts Adi off his mission, leading to bangs on the wall, which baffle Tekla. He does get annoyed when she tells him that the chapter she chose to read aloud was the one about her sexual awakening with her first husband. “I think I caused a scandal,” she says gleefully. “The whole island is talking.”
“Tekla, you promised…”
“I know, I know.”
“…to read any other chapter…”
“I know but it reads so well.”
Adi eventually works himself up to exploding at her, as instructed: “You give the orders; you make the plans…You come home and take me down off the shelf where I’ve been waiting for you.”
Tekla catches on right away. “This isn’t how you feel! These aren’t your ideas…I know someone got in your head.”
It’s not until the third and final scene, a confrontation between Gustav and Tekla, that the theatergoer who knew nothing about “Creditors” beforehand gets the full picture.
I said before that Silverman’s version is kinder. An example that doesn’t spoil anything: Smith’s character (now named Adi rather than Adolph — which, given our association with the original name, is itself kinder!) doesn’t use crutches, as Adolph does in the original. Smith’s Adi is young and insecure (and given his gullibility, maybe not so bright.) But we’re explicitly led to understand that, rather than weak and ill, he’s healthy and innately tender.
Let me pause here to give you an opt-out option. “Creditors” is not among the best known or most produced of Strindberg’s 60 or so plays (that would be “Miss Julie” and “The Father.”) On the other hand, it has been around since the 19th century, there have been several recent Off-Broadway productions and a 2015 film adaptation (currently streaming.) So, while some theatergoers may indeed be unacquainted with the play, it’s hardly a sin to reveal the fuller picture, and difficult to continue the discussion without it.
So stop reading if you’ve already decided to attend this production and don’t want to know anything more. Otherwise, click on page 2 below
