The Visit, or The Old Lady Comes to Call

In the town of Slurry, New York, post-war recession has bitten. Claire Zachanassian, improbably beautiful and impenetrably terrifying, returns to her hometown as the world's richest woman. The locals hope her arrival signals a change in their fortunes, but they soon realise that prosperity will only come at a terrible price... Friedrich Durrenmatt's visionary revenge play, one of the great achievements of modern German-language theatre, has been transported to mid-twentieth-century America by the acclaimed playwright Tony Kushner. This revelatory new adaptation of The Visit opened in the Olivier auditorium of the National Theatre, London, in February 2020, directed by Jeremy Herrin, and starring Lesley Manville and Hugo Weaving. Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921-1990) was a celebrated Swiss author of many plays and novels, with Der Besuch der alten Dame (The Visit) first performed in 1956. It came to prominence in the English-speaking world in its original English version by acclaimed playwright, author and critic Maurice Valency (1903-1996). Tony Kushner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright, author and screenwriter, whose work includes Angels in America and the screenplays for Munich, Lincoln, and a new version of West Side Story, amongst many others.