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‘The Visit’ will stay with you

Photo by Thom Kaine Michelle Veintimillia, Matthew Deming, Roger Rees, Chita Rivera, Chris Newcomer and the cast of “The Visit.”
Photo by Thom Kaine
Michelle Veintimillia, Matthew Deming, Roger Rees, Chita Rivera, Chris Newcomer and the cast of “The Visit.”

BY SCOTT STIFFLER | “I heard it’s really dark,” said a patron who stood underneath the marquee for “The Visit” on Tuesday night. Sadly, the tone suggested this was not meant as a compliment.

It should have been.

You’d think that somebody lucky enough to be attending on the very day the show earned five Tony nominations could muster a bit more enthusiasm — if not for the buzz factor, then certainly in recognition of being among the first to see a new Kander and Ebb show, starring a living legend whose early career flourished long before Broadway was dominated by caramelized kiddie shows, jukebox junk food and dead on arrival revivals.

Refreshingly adult in its themes and appeal, this morally conflicted battle of wills plays out in the bankrupt European town of Brachen, whose seemingly quaint citizens are in fact driven by greed and regret. Sober but engaging, “The Visit” has a well-marinated nasty streak that wraps itself around you like the vines that have overtaken scenic designer Scott Pask’s symbolically decaying wrought-iron train station — where bright white rays that shine through broken windows cast shadows and, more often, an unforgiving harshness.

Kander’s alternately celebratory and ominous carnival-tinged score, as the track record suggests, is a sublime fit with Ebb’s dark ride lyrics, which repeatedly stab at the heart of why desperate people so easily abandon their better nature. Terrence McNally’s book, full of icy exchanges, won’t allow for anything lighter than nervous laughter — and the transgressions committed in “The Visit” make the crimes of those murderous folks from “Chicago” seem like minor breaches of etiquette.

Still reading? Then you’re the kind of person for whom “The Visit” is worth a stay, and maybe even a return. It’s a very good show about very bad people, both the opportunistic townsfolk and the returning royalty over whom they fawn. That would be (Tony-deserving!) Chita Rivera’s Claire Zachanassian, who fled after a public smearing made the thought of staying intolerable. In the many years since, she’s widowed often, and quite well. Dripping in jewels and immaculately dressed, the once-shunned woman of Gypsy/Jewish heritage triumphantly returns with a butler, two blind eunuchs, tons of luggage and a sleek black coffin (which glides around the stage, serving as everything from soap box to transportation to the grim thing it was made for).

Although every member of this well-traveled group walks with a support stick, the strong-willed lady who pays the bills has little tolerance for crutches — emotional or otherwise. A sparkling, steely-eyed Rivera even uses her cane to put the kibosh on thunderous audience applause, after a look washes over her face that rebuilds the fourth wall and commands the entire house to get back to the business at hand: settling old scores.

Photo by Thom Kaine Chita Rivera and the cast of “The Visit.”
Photo by Thom Kaine
Chita Rivera and the cast of “The Visit.”

Patience also wears thin as the townspeople serenade Zachanassian with “Out of the Darkness,” an ode that casts her as a descending angel. “She’s come back to save us,” the song assures, “the town that she loves.” Zachanassian is happy to oblige. Of course, there’s a catch that requires them to turn on one of their own — dignified but threadbare family man and shop owner Anton Schell (Roger Rees), who stole, broke and still holds the heart of the world’s richest woman.

“Claire is one of us,” reasons Schell. “When I tell her how we’re suffering, she will listen.” Listen she does, but is it any use? Though they openly flirt and meet in secret at the trysting place of their youth, Schell has clearly overplayed his hand, betting on forgiveness and losing big. Even so, he strives to make an honorable choice as the clock ticks on Zachanassian’s sinister ultimatum.

Literally haunted by the past (younger, ghostly versions of the former lovers hover about), this tense standoff between a revenge-seeker and a betrayer who still can’t keep their eyes off each other is what gives “The Visit” its wings. Late in the evening, an increasingly soaring score and piercingly introspective lyrics put the show on track to a place where greed is good, codependence is king and satisfaction belongs to the queen of mean.


THE VISIT  |  Book by Terrence McNally
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Based on the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt as adapted by Maurice Valency
Directed by John Doyle
Choreographed by Graciela Daniele

100 minutes (no intermission)
Tues.-Thurs. at 7 p.m.
Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m.
Wed. & Sat. at 2 p.m. | Sun. at 3 p.m.

At the Lyceum Theatre
149 W. 45th St. (btw. Sixth Ave. & Broadway)
Tickets: $29-$149, at thevisitmusical.com