Der Besuch der alten Dame

In the organizer's words:

The municipality of Güllen is helplessly facing the decline of its small town, which is on the verge of financial collapse. The last hope is Claire Zachanassian, known as a benefactor, who returns to Güllen, the place of her first love. She is prepared to go above and beyond all expectations to help the run-down town get back on its feet: I'll give you five hundred million for the town and five hundred million divided among each family. However, the condition is so absurd and anachronistic that no one takes it as seriously as it is meant to be: the old lady will then pay Güllen a billion if someone kills her former lover Alfred Ill. Forty-five years ago, the young Klara Wäscher (as she was then called) was pregnant by him, whereupon Alfred Ill betrayed their love and left and slandered Klara. She was ostracized and stigmatized and had to leave the city, accompanied by scorn and ridicule.

Referring to her moral integrity, the people of Güllen indignantly reject the offer of the returned old lady - and at the same time begin to live beyond their means. Every day it becomes harder to resist the temptation to draw on the full ...

"The world is a powder keg where smoking is not forbidden." In addition to his plays, sentences like this made the author, thinker and painter Friedrich Dürrenmatt world-famous. His best-known play THE VISIT OF THE OLD LADY premiered in Switzerland in 1956 and was subsequently performed on every continent. Throughout his life, Dürrenmatt wrote out of the conviction that "a hopeless world like ours can only be dealt with through comedy". When he died in 1991, his "evil play" about the omnipotence of money in an affluent society had become depressingly topical. But the playwright stuck to his view that "this comedy, which ends tragically, is no more damaging than animal seriousness: there is no humanity without humor".

Duration of the performance: approx. 2 hours and 20 minutes.
One intermission.