Kander and Ebb’s The Visit finally makes it to Broadway

Chita Rivera and the cast of The Visit at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Massachusetts

The Visit, the brooding musical stew of love and revenge that has been cooking for  years, will be served up on Broadway at last. As a last-minute addition to the 2014-2015 season, it will join the crush of musicals opening in April. The first-night curtain is to rise on 23 April, the final date for Tony Award eligibility. Previews are to start 26 March.

The show, based on the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt, as adapted by Maurice Valency, is already the stuff of legend, with its score by the renowned team of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb and its book by acclaimed playwright Terrence McNally. The first of the work’s three earlier incarnations was in Chicago in 2001. All three starred Broadway goddess Chita Rivera, who will again take over the role of the incredibly wealthy woman who returns to her poor hometown with an offer to its citizens: big money to kill the lover who spurned her in her youth.

The most recent production, staged this past  summer at Williamstown Theatre Festival under the aegis of director John Doyle, is the one moving to Broadway. Roger Rees plays the woman’s unfortunate hometown lover.

Doyle, as is his wont, reconstructed the piece down to a 95-minute running time. Another interesting number is 82, which is how old the ageless Rivera will be (her birthday is this month) when the show opens at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre.

Ron Cohen

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