Dürrenmatt once wrote of himself: “I can best be
understood if one grasps grotesqueness,” and The Visit is a consummate,
alarming Dürrenmatt blend of hilarity, horror, and
vertigo The play takes place “somewhere in
Central Europe” and tells of an
elderly millionairess who, merely on the
promise of her millions, swiftly turns a depressed area into a boom town. But the condition attached to her largesse, which the locals learn of only after they are enmeshed, is murder. Dürrenmatt has fashioned a macabre and entertaining parable that is a scathing indictment of the power of greed.
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