The Visit, or The Old Lady Comes to Call (NHB Modern Plays)

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 Dürrenmatt'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.

'A superb piece of theatre... this grotesquely funny study of money and morality has a remorseless, relentless force' - Evening Standard

'Kushner's language is wonderful... a singular take on a European classic' - Time Out

'A whirling, expansive attack on American consumerism... full of Kushner's soaring, compelling language, and great speeches about love, sex, money, politics - the whole damned thing' - WhatsOnStage

'An epic reimagining' - Metro

Auteur

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was a Swiss playwright, novelist, and essayist whose satiric, almost farcical tragicomic plays were central to the post-World War II revival of German theatre.

His plays include The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame, 1956), which came to prominence in the English-speaking world in its original English version by acclaimed playwright, author and critic Maurice Valency (1903-1996); and The Physicists (Die Physiker, 1962).