What do you do when a creative team mounts an acclaimed production of a beloved play, breaking box office records as one of the most successful shows in your theater’s more than 100-year history? For the Pasadena Playhouse, the answer was clear. You get them back on the boards as soon as possible — say, six months later.
Which is how it came to pass that more than a dozen creatives behind Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” including director Darko Tresnjak and actor Jefferson Mays, have returned to the historic theater for a new production of Swiss dramatist Fredrich Dürrenmatt’s revenge tragicomedy “The Visit,” running through Oct. 4.
“It feels like we just cleaned out our dressing rooms and we’re moving back in,” notes Mays.
“Amadeus,” which ended its run in April, was a critical and box office hit, so popular that after tickets were gone, additional shows were added — which also quickly sold out. Danny Feldman, producing artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse, puts it simply: “Theater is a team sport, and when you’ve got a winning team, you want to keep playing together.”
It was during tech for “Amadeus” that Tresnjak told Feldman of his love for “The Visit,” which he first directed in college. “I quite literally found my calling in life because of it,” says Tresnjak.
Feldman was also a fan — of both the play and working with Tresnjak — and quickly scheduled the show for the new season.
“Our job is to give artists a home where they can stretch and take risks,” says Feldman. “Audiences got to experience this artistic synchronicity during ‘Amadeus,’ and we’re so excited they get to deepen their relationship with these artists as they watch ‘The Visit.’ ”
The respect is mutual. Mays, who has won almost every major theater award in existence including a Tony and an Obie, says the Playhouse is one of the best he’s ever worked at. “It’s certainly the most healthy,” he notes. “They are unabashed theater fans and lovely people.”
Only days earlier, Mays had given what could be perceived as a backhanded compliment. “I said, ‘You don’t run a theater at all, you run a high school drama club,’ ” Mays recalls. “I meant that in the way it’s infused with joy and a sense of play and support and that we can do anything with impunity and embarrass ourselves and they will be there to pick us up and dust us off. It’s just a gorgeous feeling.”
While Mays brought Tresnjak to “Amadeus,” this time the director asked the actor to join “The Visit.” Mays admits he wasn’t very familiar with the text. Tresnjak’s production, which utilizes the 1956 adaptation by Maurice Valency, centers on the small town of Güllen, which is facing financial ruin.
The townspeople are preparing to welcome back former resident and potential patron Claire Zachanassian (Melinda Page Hamilton), who has become the richest woman in the world since leaving. It turns out, Claire is more than happy to help. But there is one condition: Someone must kill her former lover Anton Shill (Mays), who impregnated and abandoned Claire in their youth.
Audiences expecting an easy villain and a clear case of right and wrong will be surprised as the narrative unfolds with an examination of community, complicity and corruption within institutions of power.
Tresnjak says “The Visit” can’t be described as one thing. “I don’t want to call it a feminist revenge fantasy because that belittles it,” he says. “It’s also an inversion of a medieval mystery play where the Earth Mother is not benevolent. It’s also a fun, nifty stage thriller.”
And as relevant as the day it was written, Tresnjak adds. Dürrenmatt penned “The Visit” as a critique of Switzerland’s neutrality after World War II, which he saw as an abandonment of ethics driven by capitalism.
Tresnjak says he recently directed a scene where one townsperson urges the others to hold out against Claire’s proposition of murder, on the same day news broke that the U.S. Department of Education had pressured the American Bar Assn. to end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts. “It made me think how in some ways, the citizens of Güllen are better off than we are,” Tresnjak says
“It really is more timely than ever,” agrees Mays, who wonders if that might keep audiences away. In 2007, he starred in the World War I drama “Journey’s End,” which went on to win a Tony Award for best revival. “It was a beautiful play, but nobody came,” he says. “We were at war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and people had enough of war. Sometimes you hold the mirror up to the world, and it reflects it too well.”
Mays jokes he said yes because “it was only fair after I hornswoggled Darko into ‘Amadeus.’ ” The actor is known not just for his versatility but for displaying it in rapid succession. He won the 2004 Tony Award for playing more than 40 characters in “I Am My Own Wife,” and his 2022 adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” saw him take on more than 50 characters.
Mays admits the role of Anton is “a strangely passive and reactive role that I’m still not sure I’m entirely right for,” even going so far as to say, “I can name 10 actor friends who would be better.” But he was bowled over by the director’s passion. “It’s so thrilling when someone approaches you with something they are burning about, and I couldn’t say no.”
Indeed, Anton has a lot to react to; Hamilton’s Claire is the proactive role, forcing the action at every turn. Hamilton is known to TV audiences for her roles on “Mad Men” and “Desperate Housewives,” but she previously worked with Tresjnak on “Bell, Book and Candle” and “Rear Window” and is a big admirer of his work.
“I also tried to see ‘Amadeus,’ but I couldn’t get tickets,” she says with a laugh. She was thrilled to get a call from Tresnjak, who felt it was important to cast L.A. actors and enjoys working with previous collaborators — to the point where he didn’t hold auditions.
“I think traditionally Claire has been portrayed as crazy and evil, and that didn’t interest Darko,” Hamilton says. “I also think post-Epstein, post-#MeToo, post sheer volume of terrible behavior that men get away with, it has a different resonance today.”
Tresnjak says the role of Claire has long been special to him. “This is a woman who owns everything she is, who never tells a single lie or tries to obscure what she wants,” he says. “She is simply making society look at itself.”
Tresnjak’s upbringing was largely influenced by his mother, Maria, an immigrant from Yugoslavia (now Serbia) who served as a military skydiver in World War II. “My mother was a very strong woman, a woman who fought for what she believed in,” he says. “I have no interest in doing something like ‘Streetcar,’ where a woman is being driven out of her mind. I enjoy characters with agency.”
And he’s thrilled to have found a home that supports his vision, praising Feldman and associate artistic director Jenny Slattery, who was his student when he taught at UC San Diego. “They’re not afraid of big swings and of taking chances, and not only do people seem to appreciate that, they’re coming to see it,” he says.
With two productions in a year, is it too early to hope that this team has found a recurring home at the Pasadena Playhouse? Tresnjak demures, “I wouldn’t want to put that pressure on Danny and Jenny,” but admits he would be thrilled to return. “Of course, I’m very happy here.”
Mays is equally game. “It’s such a rare and wonderful thing in this country to have a sense of company,” he says. “To have so many actors and designers back from ‘Amadeus’ and to return to a place of such support; it feels like something that rarely exists anymore.”
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