‘The Visit’ on Broadway Is Chillingly Good

Trust a John Kander-Fred Ebb musical to make the sunny color of vitality and youth positively menacing. In the dark, thrilling show, “The Visit,” shoes, money and even tennis rackets turn yellow — a bad sign for one character whose life hangs in the balance. In the works since 2001, “The Visit” opened Thursday at the Lyceum Theatre and is one of the last to open on Broadway this season. It seems like the adults have finally shown up. The show stars Chita Rivera and Roger Rees, has a script by Terrence McNally, sets by Scott Pask, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward and is directed by John Doyle. All have Tonys and it shows. The story, based on a 1956 Friedrich Durrenmatt play, centers on a billionaire, played by Rivera, who pays a visit to her hardship-stricken European birthplace. “I married very often and I widowed very well,” she sings. She has come for revenge. The billionaire offers the townsfolk a chance to be wealthy beyond their dreams if they agree to make her long-lost lover Anton suffer. “There’s going to be a happy ending,” the townspeople sing. Don’t count on it for everyone. Soon, people start showing up with new shoes, expensive yellow ones. Anton — played sublimely by an anguished Rees — knows his friends and colleagues are planning for a windfall.