'Creditors' Off-Broadway review — a gripping psychological thriller
Read our review of Creditors off Broadway, a new adaptation of the August Strindberg drama by Jen Silverman starring Liev Schreiber, Maggie Siff, and Justice Smith.
In the original version of August Strindberg's 1889 drama Creditors, now running off Broadway in a new version by Jen Silverman, the three characters repeatedly use the titular word to suggest the transactional way they view their entangled relationships. Each person feels another owes them something — respect, trust, attention, submission — that will eventually have to be answered for. Even as the outright use of the word "creditors" disappears from Silverman's revamped script, that's still abundantly clear.
It's not all clear at first, though, not even to the characters. Take Adi, perfectly content to watch his wife, Tekla, shine personally and professionally as an author, even as his own career as a painter slows — until his mysterious new friend Gustav suggests Tekla's success comes directly at the expense of Adi's and he shouldn't let that stand. Gustav goes on to make many other incendiary observations about the pair's marriage during a lengthy conversation with Adi that opens the play, and though his motives are suspect, he's right about Adi's bottomless impressionability and lack of a strong sense of self.
In updating the show for 2025, Silverman smartly makes this newfound conflict within Adi less about the innate roles of the sexes in relationships — "To love like a man is to give; to love like a woman is to take" is a translated line from the original that's excised here — and instead leaves those ideas implied. They talk more overtly about power in general, which each character has not a male or female, but simply human desire to cling to.
Justice Smith plays Adi as open-hearted and earnest as Liev Schreiber is impenetrable and steely as Gustav, and Maggie Siff stands out as a complicated Tekla who gets far more of her own voice than in the original. But while each actor's dynamic serves their power struggle well, less successful is their execution of a different element of Silverman's script: the increased emphasis on the seduction suggested between all three points of this troubled triangle. Only Schreiber and Siff, whose characters meet in the play's final third, have true electricity. A steady buildup of attraction all around is necessary for Silverman's bold new ending to feel earned, which it doesn't quite do. But it does conceive of a fresh dynamic between the characters that Strindberg never could have entertained.
Creditors summary
Adi and his wife, Tekla, arrive for a stay at a seaside hotel. While Tekla, an author, is off promoting her successful book, creatively stunted artist Adi makes a connection with fellow hotel guest Gustav. Fueled by liquor and cigarettes, the two plunge into tense conversation, largely about Tekla and her marriage to Adi, that leads to surprising revelations and shifts in the characters' relationships once Tekla returns.
What to expect at Creditors
Creditors is one of two shows being presented concurrently at the Minetta Lane Theatre through June 18, alternating with Hannah Moscovitch's Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes starring Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty. The pair of shows are co-presented by Audible Theater and Together, a new theatre company co-founded by Jackman and Tony Award-winning producer Sonia Friedman.
Together's artistic director, Ian Rickson, deftly stages both shows, which also share a design team. Both plays explore the messy sexual, gender, and power dynamics between their characters.
What audiences are saying about Creditors
As of writing, Creditors has an 88% audience approval rating on Show-Score, compiled from 21 reviews from theatregoers with largely positive responses to the acting and story.
- "The play written in 1889 originally had a different ending and I think it would have served this production to have remained the same. I think it would be more powerful. The three cast members did a fine job." - Show-Score user Frank K
- "It's a psychological and intimate play that works to get inside the heads of all 3 characters. It's a bit slow -- there is a lot of talking and not much happens. The drama is subtle." - Show-Score user Kim G City
- "A truly disturbing, misogynistic play about hurt people who hurt people. Standout acting by Justice Smith, the rest of the cast was fairly compelling at playing terrible, nightmare people." - Show-Score user Laura H
- "Not you [sic] grandfather's Strindberg by any stretch of the imagination. The three actors are superb and the new translation rocks. Beautifully directed and the sound design is awesome." - Show-Score user John M
- "One of those stories that is definitely not as simple as it seems [...] The less you know going in... the better." - Show-Score user JoeyFranko
Read more audience reviews of Creditors on Show-Score.
Who should see Creditors
- Fans of psychological thrillers and tangled romantic dramas will be gripped by every twist of Creditors.
- Liev Schreiber's fans, particularly those who saw his performance as a morally questionable priest in last season's Doubt, will be captivated by him here as the equally slippery Gustav.
- Fans of Maggie Siff (Mad Men, Billions) and Justice Smith (Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom, I Saw the TV Glow) will appreciate their strong and layered performances.
Learn more about Creditors off Broadway
Despite some unevenness in Silverman's adaptation, this well-acted, 80-minute drama remains gripping throughout.
Photo credit: Creditors off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)
Originally published on