Friedrich D???rrenmatt is considered one of the most significant playwrights of our time. During the years of the Cold War, arguably only Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and Brecht rivaled him as a presence in European letters. In this ALTA National Translation Award-winning new translation of what many critics consider his finest play, Joel Agee gives a fresh lease to a classic of twentieth-century theater. D???rrenmatt once wrote of himself: "I can best be understood if one grasps grotesqueness," and The Visit is a consummate, ...
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Friedrich D???rrenmatt is considered one of the most significant playwrights of our time. During the years of the Cold War, arguably only Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and Brecht rivaled him as a presence in European letters. In this ALTA National Translation Award-winning new translation of what many critics consider his finest play, Joel Agee gives a fresh lease to a classic of twentieth-century theater. D???rrenmatt once wrote of himself: "I can best be understood if one grasps grotesqueness," and The Visit is a consummate, alarming D???rrenmatt blend of hilarity, horror, and vertigo. The play takes place "somewhere in Central Europe" and tells of an elderly millionairess who, merely on the promise of her millions, swiftly turns a depressed area into a boom town. But the condition attached to her largesse, which the locals learn of only after they are enmeshed, is murder. D???rrenmatt has fashioned a macabre and entertaining parable that is a scathing indictment of the power of greed and confronts the perennial questions of honor, loyalty, and community.
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Fair. Used book-May contain writing notes highlighting bends or folds. Text is readable book is clean and pages and cover mostly intact. May show normal wear and tear. Item may be missing CD. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
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Good. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 112 p. May show signs of wear, highlighting, writing, and previous use. This item may be a former library book with typical markings. No guarantee on products that contain supplements Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Twenty-five year bookseller with shipments to over fifty million happy customers.
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Some critics and playgoers consider 'The Visit' (Der Besuch der alten Dame) to be Friedrich Dürrenmatt's finest play. Others prefer 'The Physicists' (Die Physiker). I find both of them par excellence. Both books have enjoyed tremendous success in the German-speaking world and wherever German literature is studied around the world.
The plot of 'The Visit' has often been described as grotesque or macabre, but I think that is acknowledging that Dürrenmatt managed to convey brilliantly his message about the repulsive and unsavoury natiure of some powerful and wealthy people in the world we inhabit, and of the dangers of the herd mentality and mass hysteria.