ATW Review: 'The Visit'

As the old saying goes, "Money makes the world go around." This phrase was immortalized in song by John Kander and Fred Ebb for the film version of their 1966 breakthrough musical, Cabaret. The team returned to the theme of the power and allure of cold cash for their musical version of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit, which premiered in 2001 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. For a while, it was rumored that the show, which reunited the team with bookwriter Terrence McNally and stage legend Chita Rivera, both involved in another Kander and Ebb hit, Kiss of the Spider Woman, would find its way to New York, but a production has never materialized on the East Coast, until now. Last night, The Visit, an ambitious and often quite satisfying enterprise, opened at the Signature Theatre in Arlington Virginia.

The musical centers on what happens when Claire Zachanassian (Rivera) returns to Brachen, the tiny European city that she grew up in, a penniless outcast. She's now the wealthiest woman in the world while Brachen, once thriving, is bankrupt and its citizens live in poverty. The townspeople of Brachen are, understandably, delighted by Claire's visit, reasoning that they might be able to persuade her to use some of her fortune on their behalf. What they do not anticipate is that she has come to town with the very idea of financially assisting them, but on one condition: they must take steps to avenge the wrongs that were inflicted on her when she was a teenager. Specifically, she wants the people of Brachen to kill Anton Schell (George Hearn), father to the illegitimate child Claire carried as a teen, and the man directly responsible for her leaving Brachen in disgrace.

While the good folk of Brachen – from the officious mayor (Mark Jacoby) to the town's moralist schoolmaster (Jeremy Webb) –scoff at Claire's request, they almost simultaneously begin to buy things on credit – primarily from the general store that Schell runs. The lure of the windfall proposed by Claire clearly has had its impact. The only remaining question is if her condition is to be met, how will it be carried out?

Dürrenmatt's play, and McNally's book, takes a dark look at human nature, hypocrisy, avarice and even love. Elements of the symbolism from the original remain here, including the chief purchase that's made by all of the Brachen citizens: yellow shoes. Also, many of the tiny details about the affair that sent Claire from Brachen remain deliciously in place.

Kander's score for The Visit is a complex blend of sounds. At times, the music brings to mind composers like Kurt Weill and Jacques Brel; at others, Kander seems to be referencing traditional folk melodies and/or popular music from the first decades of the 20th century. Ebb's lyrics, written before his death in 2003, as always fit Kander's work flawlessly, even as they match the piece's overall bitter and rueful tone.

Unfortunately, though, even as the score impresses, The Visit, as a musical, doesn't always fully satisfy. Directed with efficiency by Frank Galati, on a dour set from designer Derek McLane that features two levels of archways, the production never quite finds an even keel where distant youthful romance and mordant humor can combine to electrifying effect. Periodically, this does happen, generally when Rivera, looking regal, leonine and ever-so misty eyed in Susan Hilferty's elegant couture ensembles, and Hearn, singing powerfully, even as he makes Schell something of a broken man, are together. Together, these two simultaneously are ex-teen lovers thrilled to be in one another's presence and two adversaries, who know that death lies just around the corner.

Elsewhere, though, success is sporadic. Choreographer Ann Reinking adds sparkle to "The One-Legged Tango" – a macabre sequence that Claire (who has a wooden leg) shares with her entourage: a manservant (Doug Kreeger), bodyguards (Howard Kaye, Alan H. Green), whom she dresses as 18th century footmen, and two eunuchs (Ryan Lowe, Matthew Deming), who are dressed as sort of erstwhile Charlie Chaplins. Here, glamour and gallows humor combine marvelously, but during the moments danced by D.B. Bonds and Mary Ann Lamb, who play the teen incarnations of Claire and Anton, one feels neither the surge of young love nor the ironic disdain that middle age can cast on such emotions.

Similarly, as the play moves toward its conclusion, Anton prepares to go to a town meeting. His wife (Karen Murphy), son (Kevin Reed) and daughter (Cristen Paige) ask if he'll need them there. If not, they'd prefer to go into the next town to shop. He assures them that they don't need to be at the gathering, and asks only that they share a family drive in his son's new car. It's a chilling moment – clearly Anton's been abandoned: financial gain has superseded familial love and duty. Yet, curiously, the ride does not propel The Visit toward its brutal and intricately layered ending, which artfully comments on the townspeople's greed and the love that Claire and Anton shared.

Audiences leave The Visit grateful for many things: Rivera and Hearn's beautifully crafted performances, the fine work from the ensemble surrounding them, and Kander and Ebb's lush – perhaps most ambitious – score, yet strangely unsatisfied by this darkly cautionary piece.

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The Visit continues through June 22 at The Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA). Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30p.m.; Thursday and Friday at 8p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8p.m.; and Sunday at 2 and 7p.m. Tickets are $56.00 - $77.00 and can be purchased by calling 703-573-SEAT. Further information is available online at www.Signature-Theatre.org.