The visit of the old lady

All the hopes of the impoverished village of Gullen rest on the visit of a former fellow citizen who was once hounded out of the village in disgrace. Meanwhile, she is an heiress of an Armenian oil empire and ready to help the place with a lot of money, but on one condition: As reparation for the injustice done to her, she wants the death of the man she was unhappily in love with at the time. She calls it justice, justice for a billion.

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DER Durrenmatt and DIE Kritik – a special relationship

"A story is finished when it has taken its worst possible turn."*

There are plays with which the dramaturgy, together with the production team, runs blindly into ruin. If the author's name is Max Frisch or Friedrich Durrenmatt, it is already clear at the planning stage that – regardless of the quality of the production – the review will open with the following text modules: "At least among German teachers, this play evokes enthusiasm" or "Terrifying memories of one's own school days are awakened" or "Generations of more or less interested students have had to endure this reading over the course of the last 50 years.".

A critic who starts his evaluation like this does not need to bother with detailed questions in the remaining lines, which could be the starting point of a serious criticism.

Questions instead of answers I

"The worst possible turn cannot be foreseen. It enters by chance."*
Where, if not in school, is the chance to get students interested in theater?
Who, if not a children's and youth theater, should think together with teachers about how this interest can be aroused?

What could be more obvious than to include plays in the repertoire every now and then that the ministries of education recommend for the curriculum??
How can you tell vivid stories for young people growing up under immeasurable media influences using the slow medium of theater?

How important it is to introduce students to the classical material from Euripides to Durrenmatt?
What makes a classic a classic?

How to prevent students from having to "read over them"?
How can students understand what the power of theater can be in the first place??
What is wrong with a teacher combining his educational mission with the requirements of the curriculum?

Questions instead of answers II

"The more planned people are, the more effectively chance can strike them."*
Why do you have to polemicize against German teachers, ("At least with German teachers. ") who go to the theater with their class and pass on their own enthusiasm to their students?

Try to remember your own school days. What form of teaching would you have liked to see as a student?
Which subjects were interesting – despite quite different questions one had about life as a teenager?
Or was the subject not so important, but rather the personality and enthusiasm of certain teachers?
Can't theater be a wonderful form of storytelling that can awaken curiosity about growing up, about the connections in life??

What can be more convincing than a performance that creates an atmosphere in which one is able to recognize and endure problems in life, perhaps defy them, and thereby get some answers to previously unasked questions??
And why shouldn't that work with a play by Friedrich Durrenmatt??

The piece – The subject

"What concerns everyone can only be solved by everyone."*
The most important impulse to include THE VISIT OF THE OLD LADY in the program was the fact that the play is extremely topical. If a director succeeds in removing the fifties patina, then a bile-bitter grotesque emerges, which could have been written by a contemporary author, as a reaction to the current social and economic situation, a "tragic comedy", as Durrenmatt calls his play in the subtitle, which holds up a mirror to us, in which we can recognize ourselves in apocalyptic images – if we want to.

Durrenmatt shows his experience that social conditions are complex, bureaucratized and mechanized in a way that they can neither be seen through nor mastered. He describes this insight by means of the moral decay of a village under the pressure of economic difficulties and comes to the conclusion that man, against his better judgment, cannot resist the seductive power of money.

In the indescribably neglected village of Gullen, the citizens sit lamenting and do not understand their fate. Their explanations of the grievances are just as false as their awareness of those responsible for the misery and the possibilities of changeability. They talk a lot about values, culture, love of justice and a sense of charity. Their actions, however, are characterized by greed for profit, machinations and deceitfulness.

All hopes rest on former citizen Claire Wascher, now Claire Zachanassian, heiress to an Armenian oil empire bequeathed to her by her late husband. Once the multimillionaire was chased out of the village with shame and disgrace. A shroud of silence has settled around the proceedings over the course of 45 years. Now the people of Gullen have a plan: the grocer Ill, who was friends with her at the time, gets the order from the village honorees to pull the needed millions out of her pocket by flattery. Zachanassian does not let this happen to her. She voluntarily holds immeasurable amounts of money in front of the villagers' noses like a delicious sausage. But on one condition: she wants Ill's death to make up for betrayed love, bribery, perjury, defamation of character and venality 45 years ago. She has returned and wants justice, justice for a billion.

The emphatic rejection of the sum by the mayor is just as ambiguous and hollow as the appeasement of the other "string pullers". The consumption of all inhabitants on credit begins immediately after Zachanassian's tribunal. Inevitably, this seals Ill's fate.

There is no point in appealing to values if they are not the expression of a collective mindset. The words pretend a consensus of values, by which the citizens are gladly lulled to sleep. This leads to a reevaluation of all values, which the author demonstrates with painful precision. When humanity is mixed with commerce, when no one refuses to consume on credit, when people no longer remain silent but prevent the truth from coming to light, then lies become the world order. Whoever thinks he can win the pact with the devil through finesse is already the devil's prey. This shows us Durrenmatt.

For a generation that is growing up with "cheap is cool" slogans and whispers that owning recognized brand-name goods makes you a recognized person, this play – despite the 50 years it has been around – can be a wonderful provocation and thought-provoking aid.

The production

"Reality appears in the paradoxical."*
Gil Mehmert's production seeks actualization in the reduction, in the limitation of the theatrical means. Where Durrenmatt prescribes an entire train station and half a village including an inn, as well as field and forest ambience, in our imagination a run-down town hall is sufficient for the director to describe the labyrinth in which the downfall of the world order takes place in a whirlpool fashion. Film-like tableaus are created, which are intensified by the function of the music, which – as in all Gil Mehmert productions – plays a very important role. This is how the parable character of the play emerges: the parable of the impossibility of resisting the seductiveness of money.

*The chapter headings are taken from Friedrich Durrenmatt: 21 points to the PHYSICS, written for the anthology Comedies II and Early Plays