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The Visit
The Visit
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Author: Friedrich Durrenmatt Adapted by: Maurice Valency Publisher: Samuel French (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 115 Pub. Date: 1958 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0573617546 ISBN-13: 9780573617546 Cast Size: 8 female, 9 male (doubling)
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About the Play:
The Visit has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes and Male/Male Scenes.
The Visit is a full-length drama adapted by Maurice
Valency from the acclaimed
drama by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The dark story of
wealthy woman who returns
to her poverty-stricken hometown. She promises a sum of money so vast
it will return the town to its former glory days – on one
condition: The townspeople must kill the man who wronged her in her
youth. The Visit
asks how far the town will go to save itself. Especially recommended
for school and contest use.
The Visit is a classic
masterpiece that hinges
on an immoral choice made for financial gain.
A rich, oft-married widow returns
to her her debt ridden hometown in central Europe and makes
an offer that the townspeople can't refuse. She offers a
sum greater than they have ever imagined. But there
is a condition: she wants the life
of the man who seduced and abandoned her years ago and is now the
town's most respected citizen. Ringing denial of this absurd
demand is followed by the gradual corruption of everyone in town. He
is murdered and money is passed over his body to the town. The
vengeful lady leaves with a fantastic entourage and with the coffin
of her old lover. The Visit explores societal issues around
human nature and the human connections we sell out on in the face of
financial gain and social advancement.
Der Besuch der alten Dame ("The Visit of the Old
Lady") premiered in Zurich, Switzerland in 1956, when Friedrich
Durrenmatt was 35. It was such a success that productions (now
with the shortened title, The Visit) sprang up in England and
America over the next two years. The Visit adapted by Maurice
Valency premiered in 1958 on Broadway at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and won Best Foreign Play from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Considered a modern classic, the
show has enjoyed 3 Broadway revivals. It has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is a staple
of college, high school, and community theatre productions.
Cast: 5 female, 25 male, 2 girl(s) or boy(s) (alternate casting 8 female, 9 male with doubling)
What people say:
"The Visit stands
revealed as a small masterpiece of misanthropy, a play whose cynicism
is so thickly layered that the greed driving the plot at its surface
seems almost the least of its characters' sins. For Durrenmatt,
people, not money, are the root of all evil ... the dialogue in
Maurice Valency's English adaptation, offers savage counterpoint to
the action." — The New York Times
"Stinging...[with] astonishing
power." — The New York Herald Tribune
"A devastating drama."
— The New York Times
About the Playwright:
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was a leading post-war
Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose
plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The
politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas,
philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire.
Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten.
Maurice Valency (1903-1996) was an American playwright,
author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at
Columbia University, best known for his award winning adaptation of
The Visit. He also wrote television plays, adaptations of
librettos, novels, and academic works on Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen
and Shaw.
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Friedrich Durrenmatt, translated by Robert MacDonald
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