The Visit: Review

To say the least, I was not overjoyed with the prospect of being assigned play-review duty. It's not that I am allergic to theater, it's that I've seen, over my tenure at Georgia Southern University, a plethora of nail-grinding, yawn-able, a just down right repellent performances. But, suffice it to say, and to my excitement, The Visit was by far, the best exhibit of theater I have been privileged to attend in quite some time.

The Visit revolves around the morally ambiguous characters of Clara Zachanassian and Anton Schill as well as the poverty stricken town folk of Güllen. Without giving away the entire plot, I'll say this: Zachanassian gives the citizens of Güllen the option of obtaining 1 billion Deutsche Marks in turn for a favor they must give her. The favor, the catch, is that one of their own must give up his/her life. An intriguing, yet unoriginal premise that through the overall story and intricacies of character becomes more a tale of internal struggle and a commentary on the implications and ambiguities of real life scenarios than a theatrical melodrama or run of the mill Lottery rip-off.


Overall, the acting was, by far, the best element of this particular rendition. Every scene exuded a realness that was only achieved through the actors - their voices, their movements and their gestures almost perfectly mimicked the complex emotions of fear, hope, judgment and self-redemption that are interwoven into the overall narrative. The only complaint I have in regards to the acting is that several of the actors [Pedro in particular, Zachanassian's current fiance'] did not project their voices as much as is needed to reach all ears of the theater. Moreover, the station master was out of place: instead of fluid dialogue recitation, his lines were delivered mechanically, as if he were having to think of each sentence before it was said. But it wasn't a deal breaker.

The only other pet peeve I had with the play was the pronunciation of the town: Güllen. The play is set somewhere in Germany [ the playwright kept the location anonymous as he wanted to keep the air of "this could happen anywhere" (Wikipedia)]. Now, other German words were pronounced correctly [Frau, Herr, etc.], yet the name of the town was constantly pronounced Gul-len...it is correctly pronounced Goo-len. If certain words are pronounced correctly, this should have been too - mispronunciation took me out of the verisimilitude of the play. But, on the other side of the argument, most theater-goers would not know, especially locally, that the name of the town was mispronounced.

It just took me out of the story, distracted me from the superb acting, and made me grind my teeth in frustration ever time it was uttered.

But those little peeves and complaints aside, I would love to see The Visit performed again and by these individuals. The experience was a much welcomed change from the typical melodrama and the blockbuster mentality that is Hollywood. To say the least, it was a Saturday night well spent and a play I would recommend.