The Visit
By Friedrich Durrenmatt | Adapted by Maurice Valency
Sep. 29-Oct. 2 at 7:30 | Oct 2-3 at 2:00
A wealthy woman returns to her debt-ridden hometown and offers a sum greater than they have ever imagined. But there is a condition: she wants the life of a villager who disgraced her years ago. Ringing denial of this absurd demand is followed by the gradual corruption of everyone in town.
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Fun Facts about
Friedrich Durrenmatt
- He insisted that all of his works, except The Visit, should be somewhat classified as comedies. He believed that people could no longer write tragedy because the modern age is not suited for it. He considered The Visit a “tragi-comedy.”
- He belonged to the Gruppe Olten club, a group of swiss writers that, according to them, wanted to “build a democratic socialist society.”
- He never considered his plays as finished; he was constantly revising them. After 1970, he stopped writing new plays and just focused on revising his already written ones.
- He participated in as many of his original productions as he could. He was highly involved in helping produce and rewrite when needed — even up to the last minute. If his words or the performance did not affect the audience members as he thought, he would draft a new text for the next performance.
- While some of his works may beg to differ, Dürrenmatt wasn’t the biggest fan of symbolism. He thought that many discussions revolving around his works were riddled with statements of unneeded symbolism.
- The Swiss secret service spied on him for almost 50 years due to his beliefs, speeches, and plays!
- While he loved Switzerland and the peace the land brought, it also brought on conflicting thoughts as he disagreed with many political decisions of the Swiss government before, during, and after the Second World War.
- Although he didn’t think Switzerland was actually neutral during the Second World War, he believed he was a representation of Switzerland as he felt charged to analyze, criticize, and observe the events surrounding him and his country.
- He was a firm believer in the idea that the stage is not meant for theories but for experimentation.
- Overall, he combined surface realism with absurdist artistic vision in his works, especially his plays.
Guest Director
Kimille Howard
Kimille Howard is a New York based director, deviser, writer and filmmaker. She is an Assistant Stage Director at the Metropolitan Opera and recently worked on the new James Robinson production of Porgy and Bess. She is the newly appointed Artistic Director of the Lucille Lortel Theatre’s NYC Public High School Playwriting Fellowship and a cofounder of the Black Classical Music Archive. Select directing credits: The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson (Glimmerglass Festival), L’Amant Anonyme (Wolf Trap Opera), Death By Life: a virtual opera (White Snake Projects), In The Open by Mona Monsour (Western Connecticut State University), Soil Beneath by Chesney Snow (Primary Stages/59E59), $#!thole Country Clapback by Pascale Armand (Loading Dock Theatre), The Fellowship Plays (Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation), A Light Staggering by Jeesun Choi (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Tidwell: or the Plantation Play by Rodney Witherspoon II (Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival – winner), Low Power by Jon Kern (EST), BLACK GIRLS ARE FROM OUTER SPACE by Emana Rachelle (National Black Theatre), Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau (TheatreSquared) and TRIGGERED by Gabriel Jason Dean (Cherry Lane Theatre). Kimille was awarded Best Director at the 2016 Thespis Festival for It’s All About Lorrie by Joseph Krawczyk (Hudson Theater) which received a commercial run at The American Theater of Actors in 2017. Her work has also been seen at MultiStages, The Circle in the Square Theatre Circle Series, The Queens Theatre, Juilliard, The Flea, The Lark, JAGFest, NYU, Sea Dog Theater, and Atlantic Acting School, CLASSIX/The Lewis Center, among others. Broadway: Ain’t Too Proud (Assistant Director). She has worked with Des McAnuff, Rebecca Frecknall, Ruben Santiago Hudson, Emily Mann, Stephen Wadsworth, Lorca Peress and more. Recent Fellowships: New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship and the Manhattan Theatre Club Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship. She has produced shows at the HERE Arts Center, FIAF, and more. She is a current member of The New Georges Directors Jam, a participant in New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project, and a former Resident Director at the Flea Theater. She is the Series Producer for American Opera Project’s Music As the Message. UPCOMING: The Visit (ECU), Tosca and Porgy and Bess (Assistant Stage Directing – The Met), Highway 1, USA (IU Opera), Quamino’s Map (Chicago Opera Theater). www.kimillehoward.com
An interview with Kimille Howard
by dramaturg Reagan Blackburn
In rehearsals
