Theatre
The Visit
Der Besuch der alten Dame
Friedrich Dürrenmatt · 1956
Synopsis
Claire Zachanassian, now one of the richest women in the world, returns to Güllen, the ruined town she left as a young girl. She offers a billion, half to the municipality and half to its inhabitants, in exchange for one thing: the life of Alfred Ill, the grocer who abandoned her when she was pregnant and who won the paternity suit against her thanks to two false witnesses. The mayor refuses on behalf of everyone, and she replies that she will wait. Then the orders begin, always on credit.
Context
Premiered in 1956 at the Schauspielhaus in Zurich, with Therese Giehse as Claire, the play was published the same year by Die Arche; it carries the subtitle of tragic comedy. Peter Brook staged it in English in Maurice Valency's adaptation, with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, before taking it to Broadway. It inspired an opera by Gottfried von Einem, premiered in Vienna in 1971, and a musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb.
Who it is for
A play in three acts, with an implacable mechanism. The town's turn is the real subject.
Prizes and reception
Staged in France as early as 1957, in Jean-Pierre Porret's translation, and since then mounted by Jean Mercure and Omar Porras, among others.