The Visit review: Lesley Manville is magnetic in Tony Kushner's superb, but very long, drama

1/15
Nick Curtis @nickcurtis14 February 2020

First the great news: Lesley Manville gives a magnetic, flint-sharp performance in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s grotesquely funny study of money and morality. She’s matched by Matrix star Hugo Weaving, making his NT debut in Jeremy Herrin’s magisterial production.

The bad news? It lasts 225 minutes and could easily be half that length. I imagine Herrin had to fight playwright Tony Kushner for every tiny cut to his undeniably elegant, language-besotted adaptation.

Even distended, the story has a remorseless, relentless force. The world’s richest woman, now old and maimed, offers her impoverished rural hometown a fortune for the life of Alfred, the lover who ruined her as a teenager. At first, the townsfolk close ranks around Alfred. But the idea of wealth has taken root.

The wickedly playful elements of Dürrenmatt’s story are all here. Manville’s Claire Zachanassian mislays artificial legs and husbands. She flicks lit matches in a dry pine forest and travels with a panther, a coffin, and a neutered retinue of other men who have wronged her.

I’m not sure why Kushner shifted the action from Fifties Europe to upstate New York, unless it’s to facilitate future US productions. But it does mean we get luxurious 20th-century Americana designs by Vicki Mortimer and a nifty jazz soundtrack.

Manville stalks through this stylish, macabre milieu with a beady, stiff-legged swagger, a fabulous wardrobe and a cloud of white-blonde hair that’s part Madonna, part Thatcher. Whenever she speaks you forget to check your watch. She’s always been a great actress and now she’s on a stage big enough to act like a star. Weaving has a working man’s gruff heft as Alfred that dissolves as he feels his fate engulf him. The late scene of tenderness between Alfred and Claire, the only honest characters, is very moving. The finale — no spoilers — is exquisitely done.

This is a superb piece of theatre. But a very, very long one.

In rep until May 13 (020 7452 3000, nationaltheatre.org.uk)

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