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2012
Theatre
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I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
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Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Alan Rickman.
Cast: Tom Burke, Anna Chancellor, Owen Teale
Description: David Grieg presents August Strindberg's dark comedy, exploring obsession, honour and revenge.
Trains: Tube: Covent Garden 
Phone: 0870060 6624
Website: www.donmarwarehouse.com
Battle of the sexes: Tom Burke (Adolph) and Anna Chancellor (Tekla) in Creditors
After party: with director Alan Rickman and Owen Teale (Gustav) after the show
Strindberg was famous for impassioned misogyny and his vision of life as a series of deathly battles between the sexes. Alan Rickman's production of this fascinating, little-known tragicomedy, presented in a perfectly nuanced, witty version by David Greig, suggests Strindberg had a more complex and disturbing view of human relations. Creditors introduces a campaign of psychological terrorism into the old sex war. The solo but commanding terrorist is Gustav. This ex-husband arranges a fearful revenge on his former wife, the novelist Tekla, and on her new husband, the artist Adolph, whose crutches signify physical and emotional weakness.
Unfortunately Rickman reduces the potency and impact of Creditors by rendering it amusingly in realistic, black comedy format. The entire play, however, would be more convincing transmitted in expressionistic form as Gustav's dream of revenge. For Adolph's abject submission to the older man's ideas about women and his eagerness to accept the psychological brain-washing inflicted upon him by Gustav feels not so much masochistic as elements in a vengeance fantasy of which the older man dreams.
The scene is the empty lounge of a Swedish hotel near the sea, though the characters' intimate behaviour on designer Ben Stones's all-white, bedlike sofas makes it seem a fantasy location. Gustav, the model of sturdy, strutting self-confidence in Owen Teale's imposing performance, is first seen giving lessons in life to the far younger Adolph, whom he has just met. Tom Burke poignantly invests this character with self-doubts and selfpity, placidly accepting the assurance that he has been emasculated, consumed and controlled by Tekla. Gustav's crazy demand that Adolph abstain from sex to avoid epilepsy and the weird assertion that the young man appears at death's door are accepted with absurd, doleful docility: "What sort of terrible power do you have in you," Adolph murmurs.
After Anna Chancellor's impressive Tekla, in erotic and practical control of her enthralled but protesting husband, returns to the hotel lounge, it is as if she were set upon demonstrating the truth of Gustav's malign verdict upon her as a wife whose love for Adolph has been transformed into sibling affection. Yet in the under-energised, climactic encounter between Gustav and Tekla, it is the man not the woman who is set madly upon destruction and mysteriously achieves it. For once in Strindberg the male becomes the more dangerous of the species.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
This was an utterly riveting piece of theatre; the best thing I've seen in the West End this year. Perhaps it was primarily attributable to the wonderful new Grieg version, but it made me rethink my previously rather ambivalent feelings about Strindberg. The direction and acting were perfectly pitched; the slightly other-worldly bleached stage design set just the right tone - and I have to say that I don't think I would have been more convinced by a version which construed it all as Gustav's dream of revenge at all - expressionistically or not.
- Drama Queen, London, UK
Nicholas, you commit the cardinal error for a theatre critic when you start to review the play you wish you had directed rather than the one you saw. Please, spare us what you think "would be more convincing" and get on with reviewing what the artists have given you.
- A Theatre Goer, London
