The Visit at The National Theatre

“You know what? Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the desire to come to a halt, to bring everything to a stop, to put on the brakes. You know! I am at the age when my friends are dying. What will be left after us? I would be content to remain here. Here, on this corner. To stand and stare! To go nowhere! Not continue, damn! Not kick the bucket! You know what I mean? Do you feel the same?” Four men, old friends, hold a party. They discuss personal and historical matters, the long-given and the irrevocable, they talk about the extinction of humankind, the global powers’ geopolitical escapades, the corruptness of the Czech elites. And the clock keeps ticking. The leitmotif to the chatter is an asteroid, which is expected to hit Earth in the evening. The fragility of our planet coincides with the equally endangered and delicate physical shell of human lives. Death has nestled down in one of the men’s bodies. Yet this subject – unlike the problems facing humankind – is what male conversation is no match for. The course of an ordinary getting together is depicted by Emil Hakl (b. 1958) with the accuracy of a hyper-realistic painter. The Visit is the theatre debut by an author whose work is among the very best Czech literature has had to offer over the past few decades.

Authors

• Fred Ebb
• Friedrich Duerrenmatt
• Friedrich Durrenmatt
• John Kander
• Terrence McNally

Tony Awards and Nominations for The Visit