![]() There are plenty of laughs but the 12-strong ensemble is too subdued to be hilarious, despite an excellently hang-dog performance by Gerry Mulgrew as the persecuted Freddie, stoically accepting the greedy insanity around him. Written by Swiss author and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt in 1956, The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame or The Visit of the Old Lady in German) is a tragicomic play in three acts. As Clarrie, Ann Louise Ross is a forceful presence, lesbian leanings and all, but she reveals her bitter side too soon, lessening the surprise when she shows her true colours. Martin Danziger's production captures the drama's sombre aspects but underplays the comedy. ![]() The shift lets him make new jokes about social inclusion and the buzz words of local government, while the whiff of globalisation emphasises the economic pressures that bear down on the town. ![]() ![]() This is true even before Peter Arnott's funny colloquial adaptation which relocates the play to a modern airport lounge in a godforsaken Scottish backwater. Dürrenmatt was raised as a Protestant, though I realised that upon writing the play, he may no longer have been religious. The more decadent the debt-ridden town becomes, the more its language makes an unreasonable deed appear reasonable. Throughout the process of the interactive oral, I understood that much of Dürrenmatt’s own family background as well as his view on Swiss politics affected his writing in The Visit. Though written in 1956, you'd think the play was lampooning the doublespeak justifications of our own world in which politicians disguise the pursuit of profit as a "war on terror". ![]()
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