La visite de la vieille dame
5 – 28 July 2019
Théâtre de l'Adresse « Diffusion », 2 avenue de la Trillade, Avignon
The Visit, a story of revenge
An immensely rich old lady returns to her home village, Güllen (“manure”), to take revenge on a youthful love who betrayed her. The once-prosperous village is now ruined and dilapidated, so its inhabitants intend to seize this opportunity to get money out of the newly arrived billionaire.
In The Visit, written in 1956, Dürrenmatt launches a scathing attack on the wavering of conscience and the hypocrisy that greed provokes.
A procession of tortured, grimacing characters will come to terms with morality and prepare for a collective crime; the author specifies: “it is a tragicomedy”.
The lines between justice and injustice, guilt and innocence blur for the length of this danse macabre. Fickle speeches follow one another, and the community, corrupted by money, loses all sense of good and sets off inexorably down paths as twisted as they are unhealthy.