ABSTRACT
Creditors is one of the most brilliant of Johan August Strindberg’s short plays. It was written in 1888, the same year as Miss Julie, the year following The Father, the first of his so-called Naturalist plays. Before writing Creditors he finished his autobiographical novel, A Fool’s Defence, based on his relations with Siri and her former husband, Baron Carl Gustav Wrangel, and describing the wife’s anxiety to be rid of her present husband, “the troublesome creditor.” Both in the novel and in Creditors he called the former husband Gustav, Baron Wrangel’s second name, and referred to him as “an idiot,” and it is evident that the play grew directly out of this book. Creditors contains other biographical details, such as the reference to the death of Tekla’s child by Gustav. Strindberg’s scheme for a Scandinavian Experimental Theatre petered out from excess of strain and lack of funds, after single performances of Miss Julie and Creditors.
