Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Recalibrated Off-Broadway revivals of classic plays: August Strindberg’s CREDITORS and Sophie Treadwell’s MACHINAL

• By drediman
• June 20, 2025
• No Comments

Over the past week or so, I was able to catch a pair of Off-Broadway revivals of classic plays that have been thoughtfully recalibrated for contemporary audiences. As always, read on for my thoughts.

CREDITORS
Audible Theater and TOGETHER at the Minetta Lane Theater
Closed

Before concluding its limited run last week at the Minetta Lane Theatre, I was able to catch Jen Silverman’s new adaptation of Creditors (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), August Strindberg’s simmering 1889 drama about a toxic love triangle. Presented by Audible Theater in conjunction with TOGETHER — Hugh Jackman and Sonia Friedman’s new theater venture — the new adaptation stealthily upends the classic play, making it a fascinating companion piece to Hannah Moscovitch’s Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, the Hugh Jackman vehicle with which Creditors was running in rep. Although the time and place of the production have been left intentionally vague, Silverman’s economically plotted, carefully rebalanced version of Strindberg’s compact play starts off traditionally enough with two men, Gustav and Adi, commiserating over art and women. Little does the pliable Adi know that the vengeful and manipulative Gustav is planting seeds of chaos in his head, which leads to a jealousy and doubt ridden bout when his wife Tekla — a fiercely independent yet level-headed woman — enters the scene. In the final stretch of the play, it is revealed that Gustav is in fact Tekla’s bitter first husband, whom she left high and dry years ago. In the ending, however, Silverman quietly but audaciously inverts Strindberg’s original intent, putting a firm kibosh on Gustav’s destructive endgame. Like his staging of Sexual Misconduct, Ian Rickson brought patience, clarity, and subtle symmetry to the production, which was superbly acted by the trio of Liev Schreiber (a knotted, complicated Gustav), Maggie Siff (a logical, self-aware Tekla), and Justice Smith (an uncommonly likable Adi).

MACHINAL
New York Theatre Company at New York City Center
Through July 3

Over at New York City Center, you’ll be able to find an interesting revival of Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 play Machinal (RECOMMENDED). Presented by the newly-formed New York Theatre Company, director Amy Marie Seidel’s stylish Off-Broadway production leans in on the play’s famous expressionistic bent, enhancing Treadwell’s fractured text and mounting anxiety levels with an overall sensory experience. Especially heightened are the sonic elements — extensive usage of percussive underscoring (including tap dancing), live music (e.g., cello, guitar, singing), and some ingeniously wrought sound design (the practical foley effects are especially clever). Visually, the show is striking to look at — especially Coleen Doherty’s noir-ish lighting design — consisting primarily of resourcefully arranged and re-arragned desks (the scenic design is by Rochelle Mac). The show is also very much dance and movement-based, featuring diverse and well-integrated choreography by Madison Hilligoss which relies on the entire ensemble — a young, hardworking bunch consisting primarily of women — to bring a dynamic and balletic sense kineticism to Treadwell’s pungent world. In short, the play chronicles one woman’s breakdown in an increasingly mechanized and impersonal world. As played by Katherine Winter, the character’s fall from grace is depicted with an unsettling combination of catatonia and recklessness. Also worth mentioning as the tragic heroine’s restless lover (among other characters) is the work of Soph Metcalf, a beguilingly self-possessed young actor of note. Although I largely admire Seidel’s stylized, heavily-augmented approach, the production at times flags under its performative layers, floating along when it should combust with the ferocity of a fever dream.