The Visit is a German play originally published in 1956. It's been translated several times, but this particular version was adapted by Maurice Valency and first performed on Broadway in 1958.

 The following is an excerpt from a note by the playwright, Friedrich Dürrenmatt:

 "The Visit is the story of an action which takes place in a small town somewhere in Central Europe. It is told by someone who feels himself at no great remove from the people involved, and who is not so sure eh would have acted differently. Any further meaning imputed to the story needs no mention here, and should not be imposed on the stage production...I have described people, not marionettes, an action and not an allegory. I have presented a world, not pointed a moral (as I have been accused of doing), and what is more I have not even tried to force my play on the public, for all that happens quite naturally in any case, so long as the audience too belongs in the theatre."