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

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 150

Beschreibung

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

Leseprobe

THE VISIT

or

THE OLD LADY COMES TO CALL

based on the play

Der Besuch der alten Dame

by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

adapted by Tony Kushner

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

A Note on the Play

Original Production

Characters

The Visit or The Old Lady Comes to Call

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

A Note on the Play

Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Der Besuch der alten Dame premiered at Schauspielhaus Zürich, Switzerland, on 29 January 1956, directed by Oskar Wälterlin, and starring Therese Giehse and Gustav Knuth.

The play transferred to Munich, again with Giehse in the leading role, for the German premiere at the Kammerspiele, and started a tour of triumph from there: first in the German- speaking countries, where it was the most-staged play of 1956 and 1957. It was then produced around the world, in France, Spain, Poland and Japan amongst other countries.

Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and widely known for his award-winning adaptations of Jean Giraudoux and Dürrenmatt. He adapted the play into English for a memorable production in London and then on Broadway in 1958, starring husband and wife Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, and directed by Peter Brook. All three were nominated for Tony Awards, and The Visit was nominated for Best Play; it was voted Best Foreign Play by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle.

Over the years the play has been adapted for the stage and screen many times and in numerous languages. In 1964, Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn starred in a much-altered film directed by Bernhard Wicki – tagline: ‘Hell hath no fury…’ Here, Zachanassian halts the execution, giving the money to the town as pledged, but forcing Ill (or Miller in this adaptation) to live there amongst his would-be executioners. An opera, adapted by Dürrenmatt himself, with music by Gottfried von Einem, was first performed in 1971, whilst John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical version, with a book by Terrence McNally, opened on Broadway in 2015.

Previous memorable productions in the UK include a 1989 stylised production by Théâtre de Complicité (now Complicité) at the Almeida Theatre, which transferred to the National, and Lauren Bacall and Joss Ackland in Terry Hands’ 1995 Chichester Festival Theatre revival.

‘The Visit was my breakthrough,’ remarked Dürrenmatt in 1980, ‘it is my most popular play.’

This adaptation of The Visit or The Old Lady Comes to Call was first performed in the Olivier auditorium of the National Theatre, London, on 13 February 2020 (previews from 31 January). The cast was as follows (in alphabetical order):

ROBY

Troy Alexander

MATTIE ILL

Charlotte Asprey

CHIEF SANDOR MUNDZUK

Jason Barnett

DAN

Sam Cox

ANNALISE ILL/JACK E. HOFFMANN

Bethan Cullinane

CHIEF ENGINEER/BAT GORMLEY

Paul Dodds

MR HOFBAUER

Ian Drysdale

BOBY

Richard Durden

PERCY MUNDZUK

Michael Elcock

LOBY

Paul Gladwin

SHOPGIRL/DANA COWLE

Mona Goodwin

DR JERSEY NUTLING

Garrick Hagon

EDELTRUD HERCKHEIMER/MRS CREEKY

Liz Izen

MISS HENRIETTA COVINGTON

Sara Kestelman

HUSBAND #7/HUSBAND #8/TWINNINGS HOON/GYMNAST

Joshua Lacey

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN

Lesley Manville

MR EMERSON/ANTONY LEYVANHOUCK/CONDUCTOR

Simon Markey

DOBY

Louis Martin

BILL

Kevin Mathurin

BELSHA/ BERNARD MENDELSOHNN

Alex Mugnaioni

REVEREND FERRIS MESSING

Joseph Mydell

ZACHARY ILL

Stuart Nunn

KOBY

Simon Startin

WALLACE

Tony Turner

BEDNEY

Douglas Walker

ALFRED ILL

Hugo Weaving

MRS BLATTER/MRS BALK

Flo Wilson

MAYOR NICHOLAS HERCKHEIMER

Nicholas Woodeson

UNDERSTUDIES

DOBY/ROBY/HUSBAND #7/TV NEWSMEN

Stuart Nunn

MATTIE/DAN/MRS BLATTER

Liz Izen

ANNALISE/MRS CREEKY/MRS BALK

Mona Goodwin

CHIEF ENGINEER/ZACHARY/ANTONY LEYVANHOUCK

Louis Martin

BOBY/LOBY/KOBY/DR JERSEY NUTLING

Simon Markey

PERCY MUNDZUK/HUSBAND #8

Troy Alexander

EDELTRUD HERCKHEIMER/MISS HENRIETTA COVINGTON

Flo Wilson

TWINNINGS HOON/CONDUCTOR/GYMNAST

Alex Mugnaioni

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN

Charlotte Asprey

MR EMERSON

Douglas Walker

BILL/WALLACE

Paul Gladwin

BELSHA/MR HOFBAUER

Joshua Lacey

REVEREND FERRIS MESSING/CHIEF SANDOR MUNDZUK

Kevin Mathurin

ALFRED ILL

Paul Dodds

BEDNEY/MAYOR NICHOLAS HERCKHEIMER

Ian Drysdale

MUSICIANS

Malcolm Edmonstone, Shane Forbes, Nick Moss, Jo Nichols and Becca Toft

AFTER-SCHOOL TUMBLERS (THE CHILDREN)

Aliya Ali, Ceyda Ali, Georgia Leigh Coleman, Phoebe Rose Easom, Siahra Edmondson, Tey Tey Edmondson, Harry Heaslewood, Rio King, Lexi Grace Kowlessar, Katie Mitton, Willow Mitton and Asha Sthanakiya

SUPERNUMERARIES

Rhyanna Alexander-Davis, Auriane Amor, Jessie Baek, Karl Best, Jules Chan, Karen Connell, Thea Day, Sophie Dessauer, Holly Freeman, Keletso Kesupile, Elham Mahyoub, Genevieve Osili, Martha Pothen, Sabrina Richmond, Vinesh Veerasami and David King Yombo

CHOIR

Ese Adjekughele, Amelia Anderson, Tony Bannister, Ali Blows, Louise Boyd, Grace Cowie, Sarah Cribdon, Flora Dawson, Miranda Ford, Laura Glover, Neil Gordon, Alan Gribben, Amy Hendry, Hannah Horsburgh, Jack Hudson, Georgia Ingham, Rebecca Jeetoo, Zanna Mercer, Jo Monowid, Laura Beth Mortemore, Daisy Mouatt, Lou Nyuar, Natalie Panto, Victoria Priest, Kira Rogers, Natalie Sanderson, Kate Sketchley, Cameron Slater, Hannah Smith and Clarence Tan

Director

Jeremy Herrin

Set Designer

Vicki Mortimer

Costume Designer

Moritz Junge

Lighting Designer

Paule Constable

Movement Director

Aletta Collins

Composer

Paul Englishby

Sound Designer

Paul Arditti

Music Director

Malcolm Edmonstone

Choir Leader

Clare Wheeler

Company Voice Work

Jeannette Nelson and Victoria Woodward

Dialect Coaches

Danièle Lydon and William Conacher

Staff Directors

Eva Sampson and Sophie Moniram

Originally commissioned by and produced in association with David Binder.

THE VISIT

or

THE OLD LADY COMES TO CALL

Characters

WALLACE, an unemployed man

BILL, an unemployed man

BEDNEY, an unemployed man

DAN, an unemployed man

BELSHA, a painter

MRS BLATTER, a bankruptcy manager

MAYOR NICHOLAS HERCKHEIMER, Mayor of Slurry

MISS HENRIETTA COVINGTON, Principal of Slurry High School

REVEREND FERRIS MESSING of the First Reformed Methodist Church

ALFRED ILL, a shopkeeper

CLAIRE ZACHANASSIAN, a billionairess

BOBY, Mrs Zachanassian’s butler

HUSBAND #7, a handsome Greek owner of Brazilian plantations, married to, then divorced from Mrs Zachanassian

CHIEF ENGINEER aboard the Inverary–Oswego–Toledo Mistral Express

THE MIXED-RACE CHOIR

PERCY MUNDZUK, Chief Mundzuk’s teenaged son

DR JERSEY NUTLING, Slurry’s town doctor

CHIEF SANDOR MUNDZUK of the Slurry Police Department

DOBY, a convicted and condemned murderer and Mrs Zachanassian’s sedan-chair bearer

ROBY, a guitar-playing convicted and condemned murderer/light tenor and Mrs Zachanassian’s sedan-chair bearer

THE AFTER-SCHOOL TUMBLERS

EDELTRUD HERCKHEIMER, the mayor’s wife

HERCKHEIMER GRANDCHILDREN

FOUR PALLBEARERS, immensely tall women dressed in black in Mrs Zachanassian’s entourage

FRENCH MAIDS, at least forty of them, in Mrs Zachanassian’s entourage

TWO LARGE-CAT HANDLERS, both women, in Mrs Zachanassian’s entourage

A PANTHER

KOBY, a fat funny little man in Mrs Zachanassian’s entourage

LOBY, a fat funny little man in Mrs Zachanassian’s entourage

MATTIE ILL, Alfred Ill’s wife

ZACHARY ILL, Alfred Ill’s son

ANNALISE ILL, Alfred Ill’s daughter

HUSBAND #8, a French absurdist playwright, briefly married to, then returned by Mrs Zachanassian

MR HOFBAUER, Slurry’s town butcher

MRS BALK, a regular customer in Ill’s shop

MRS CREEKY, a regular customer in Ill’s shop

MR EMERSON, a regular customer in Ill’s shop

STATIONMASTER, a recent hire

CONDUCTOR aboard the southbound Blasdell–Fredonia–East Palestine–Pittsburgh Sirocco

SHOPGIRL at the Grab and Go

TWINNINGS HOON, reporter for Life magazine

ANTONY LEYVANHOUCK, photographer for Life magazine

BARNARD MENDELSOHNN, reporter for the Saturday Evening Post

DANA COWLE, CBS television reporter

BAT GORMLEY, NBC television reporter

JACK E. HOFFMANN, ABC television reporter

CAMERA OPERATORS, and SOUND, LIGHTING, MAKE- UP and WARDROBE CREWS for CBS, NBC and ABC

A GYMNAST

THE CITIZENS OF SLURRY

The play takes place in 1956, in the town of Slurry, New York.

This ebook was created before the end of previews and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

ACT ONE

Scene One

A hot afternoon in early autumn. A railroad station, built in the early 1920s, a time of prosperity. There’s a cute little Gothic Revival brick stationhouse, slatted benches flanking the door. In front of the stationhouse, two platforms divide four sets of train tracks – local and express. The local tracks are those nearest the stationhouse. The express tracks are located just past the downstage edge of the stage, in the audience. There’s a station clock on the local platform, mounted atop a rococo cast-iron pole.

A flyspotted, faded cardboard sign on the door announces that the stationhouse is ‘CLOSED’ and ‘THE STATIONMASTER WILL RETURN BY’, beneath which there’s a printed clock without hands. The station clock has both its hands but the hour hand hangs limply down, pointing permanently at 6, while the minute hand spasms uselessly between 50 and 51. Slats are missing from the benches; missing glass from the stationhouse windowpanes has been replaced with plywood; the glass of the display case for the railway schedule is cracked and the schedule lies curled up inside at the case’s bottom. The tracks are almost entirely obscured by weeds. Here and there on the walls of the stationhouse, obscenities both verbal and graphic have been timidly graffitied.

On a chipped enamel sign above the stationhouse door, the name of the town, which apparently is

SLURRY

though the sign is in the process of being eclipsed by the large banner that four men, WALLACE, BILL, BEDNEY and DAN, hoist up in front of it. BELSHA, a painter, stands to one side with a paintbrush tied to a very long pole in one hand and an open can of red paint in the other, an old paint-splattered ladder folded on the ground at his feet.

The BANNER-HOISTERS interrupt their effort at the first warning vibrations of an approaching express train; all five MEN follow the speeding train as it passes the station from left to right, making a tremendous din, raising a wind in its wake that blows the banner all about. The MEN stare at the train long after it’s vanished from sight and hearing. The banner flutters to the ground, a tangled mess. Then:

WALLACE. The Zephyr.

BILL (nodding). BBD&O’s fastest.

WALLACE. Pittsburgh to Augusta in under a day.

BEDNEY. Remember when it used to stop here, Tuesdays northbound, Thursdays south.

BILL. All the express trains stopped at Slurry. Not anymore.

DAN. There was that one time, the Zephyr pulled in and out popped ZaSu Pitts! And that man, that –

BEDNEY. No, ZaSu Pitts came through here once alright but –

DAN (continued from above). What was his name?

BEDNEY (continued from above). – she came in on the Erie- Superior’s Tramontana, Cleveland–Cheektowaga–Hamilton– Ontario.

The four MEN start to straighten out the banner, talking as they do:

BILL. The Tramontana, right, and the Willywaw, the Sirrocco –

WALLACE. Oh, the Sirrocco, I remember her!

BILL (continued from above). – the Bayamo, the Warm Braw and the Squall, the Brubru and the Haboob and –

BEDNEY (to DAN). Slim Summerville.

DAN. Right! Slim Summerville and ZaSu Pitts for the Western New York premiere of Hal Roach’s Niagra Falls at the Slurry Sidereal Panopticon. Mischa Ellman set a world record for ‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’!

BEDNEY. Fifty-three seconds if I’m not mistaken.

DAN. Here. Right here in Slurry.

BILL. Bertrand Russell on the subject of Ethical Mathematics. Blackstone the Magician and his Levitating Donkey. Billy Graham’s Crusades!

WALLACE. This town of ours was once a destination! Now it’s a by-water, bypassed by postwar commercial abundance. Every last one of our factories: closed! The town’s coffers, bone dry! No work, no hope, no future, no –

BELSHA. I studied with Glackens of the Ashcan School! I came to Slurry in search of a subject to paint, and I found it! Here! In the hills of pig-iron ingots behind the Place-In-The-Sun Amalgamated Smelting Plant, I found grim realism but with idiosyncratic coloristic inclinations! And here I’ve remained, watching helplessly as the war’s artificial economic dynamism departed with the arrival of peace and all the goddamn plants closed one by one –

BILL. I was the best turn-key project manager Bockmann’s ever had! Then one day, no warning, Bockmann’s is in receivership, next day shuttered up, and what am I now? Nothing!

DAN. Join the club! My whole life I worked for Place-In-The- Sun Smelting. (To BELSHA.) I used to eat my lunch sitting on them pig-iron hills! All gone now, sold for scrap or God knows, and I get my lunch from the soup kitchen at the church.

BELSHA. A SERIOUS POLITICAL ARTIST and look at me, painting a welcome-home banner for the world’s wealthiest parasite!

Another express train roars by. The men hang on to the sign. The train passes.

WALLACE. Camden & Amboy Extraterritorial Nor’Easter, Hagerstown–Altoona–Belfast–West Seneca.

DAN. We’re alive now only in the sense that moss and lichen are alive. Why?! What happened to us?!

WALLACE (tapping the side of his nose). Dark unfathomable forces at work. About which I need say no more. Now, let’s hoist this banner like we been promised we’ll eventually get paid for doing.

They resume their work hoisting the banner. They get it taut enough to be legible:

WELCOME CLAIRIE!

It spreads open. Offstage, nearby, a screech of brakes and the pneumatic hiss of bus doors opening, followed by a bus driver’s voice: ‘SLUUUUUURRRYYYY!’

MRS BLATTER, a haggard-looking bureaucrat in a rumpled overcoat and discouraged hat, enters dragging a huge, heavy, beaten-up documents case.

Behind her, offstage, the bus doors hiss shut as the driver calls: ‘DUNKIRK! ANGOLA! EDEN! BUUUUUFFALLO!’ and the bus drives away. MRS BLATTER watches it leave. Then she turns to look at the banner, which the MEN are tying in place. As BELSHA sets the ladder up in front of the sign, MRS BLATTER points to it and asks:

MRS BLATTER (reading the sign). ‘Clairie’? That’s a tetch informal, isn’t it?

They stare at her.

When’s she arriving?

WALLACE. Clairie? The 5:19 p.m. local.

BELSHA has started to climb the ladder. MRS BLATTER says to him:

MRS BLATTER. That ladder looks rickety. The town’s insurance has lapsed and creditors have seized the treasury, so good luck trying to sue.

BEDNEY. And who might you be?

MRS BLATTER. Blatter. Bankruptcy manager.

The five MEN look at her.

BILL (to MRS BLATTER). Bankruptcy?

DAN (to his friends). The buzzards are circling! (To MRS BLATTER.) Slurry may be down but don’t count your chickens! We got an ace we ain’t played yet!

WALLACE (pointing at the sign). Richest woman in the goddamned world!! Born here in Slurry! And she’s coming home! Today!

BEDNEY. You read about those hill towns she visited in Italy last summer?!

MRS BLATTER. I didn’t.

WALLACE. Just motoring through! On a whim she retired their debt! And she built ’em a women’s hospital! State-of-the-art!

BEDNEY. And yachting through the Dardanelles, in Patras, Kalamata and Argos, raggedy kids on every street corner, apparently, so in her wake she left behind a chain of nurseries!

WALLACE. The Zachanassian Centers for Infancy Enhancement! Endowed in perpetuity!

MRS BLATTER nods, then goes into the stationhouse. The MEN continue regardless, caught up in telling these stories.

DAN. Can you fathom her money?

WALLACE. The Armenian oil monopoly, railways, radio stations, armaments, pesticides, polyvinyl chloride plants and –

BILL. She drew her first breath right here in Slurry!

BEDNEY. Slurry’s got toddlers! And women to be hospitalized!

WALLACE. Why else would she come back? Nobody visits Slurry! Not anymore!

DAN. I bet you she smells profit in retooling the Reverberatory Aluminum –

BILL sees something approaching. He whistles a quiet alarm to the others:

BILL. Look sharp, fellas, it’s the Welcoming Committee.

The four MEN snap to various kinds of shabby attention as MAYOR NICHOLAS HERCKHEIMER, mayor of Slurry, enters with MISS HENRIETTA COVINGTON, Principal of Slurry High School, REVEREND FERRIS MESSING of the First Reformed Methodist Church, and ALFRED ILL, a shopkeeper. DAN salutes the COMMITTEE, who pay him no notice. BELSHA begins painting a new exclamation point.

MISS COVINGTON (as she enters). We don’t know her denominational preference, Reverend, or if indeed she has any religious beliefs at all –

MAYOR HERCKHEIMER (to ILL). You recall what church her family went to?

ILL. It was too long ago. We didn’t spend a lot of time discussing theology.

MAYOR HERCKHEIMER. You’re sure she’ll remember you? It’s understandable, exaggerating your connection with someone that rich and famous, but under these highly charged circumstances, it’d be unfortunate. We’re counting on you to –

ILL (sharp!). We were close as it gets. It’s just I don’t remember God ever coming into it.

MISS COVINGTON has been looking at the sign. She calls up to BELSHA:

MISS COVINGTON. I think two exclamation points might convey desperation.

BELSHA (working, muttering). Critics.

MISS COVINGTON. And, I don’t know, ‘Clairie’? What if she prefers to be addressed as Mrs –

MAYOR HERCKHEIMER. ‘Clairie’ was my idea and I like it! Let the rest of the world genuflect to Claire Zachanassian, billionairess! In her hometown of Slurry she’s our little Clairie Mugler.

ILL. Mucker.

MAYOR HERCKHEIMER. Mucker? What the hell kind of a name is –

REVEREND MESSING. Her father was Mucker the contractor.

WALLACE. He built the bleachers for the football stadium.

BEDNEY. My son broke his clavicle when they collapsed.

BILL. An incurable alcoholic, Mucker was.

BEDNEY. Not only a drunk: a mean drunk.

REVEREND MESSING. His wife fled. I encouraged her.

ILL. Yeah. She left Claire behind.

REVEREND MESSING. She hoped the child would have a steadying influence on Mr Mucker.

ILL. He beat Clara on a daily basis, until the DTs got the better of him and they carted him off to the loony bin in Utica. Screamed himself to death.

There’s a moment of silence; no one knows what to say. Then:

MAYOR HERCKHEIMER (glowering at ILL). I mean you make it sound as if she was miserable when she lived here! But she must have affection for, for something in Slurry or she wouldn’t return. Did she like roaming in the woods? Wasn’t she happy here?

ILL laughs, involuntarily.

ILL. Sorry, it’s just… She didn’t roam much, we went to the pine woods with a purpose. And when the weather was bad we’d go to Peterson’s barn – Happy? She was only happy when we…