There is an extraordinary play, The Visit, at the Loeb now, and director Kenneth Tigar has turned it into an enchanting production. The Visit is not an easy play to produce because much of the life in Friedrich Durrenmatt's topsy-turvy world depends on the complexity of his characters. The actors, without exception, were equal to the complexity, and Tigar was more than equal to the task of interpretation.

One can complain of only a single thing: the production was so good that the weakness in the play itself shone out crystal clear.

The Visit tells of the return of an old and rich woman to the impoverished German town where she was born. The townsmen have known great poverty all their lives, and they hope that her lover of 50 years ago--Alfred Ill, played by Christopher Medearis--can persuade the old lady to give them some money. The old lady agrees to help--she will contribute the phenomenal sum of "one billion"--on one condition. It seems her former boyfriend had made her pregnant, and then denied before a court of law that he was responsible. As a result she was forced to leave town, 17 years old and seven months pregnant. Starting as a prostitute, she married nine rich men in a row to become the richest woman in the world. Now, Claire Zachanassian, nee Washer, has returned to the little town to buy justice and revenge: she offers the one billion in return for her childhood lover's life.

At first the townsmen spurn the offer and stand behind their popular fellow-townsman, Ill. By the end of play they will accept it. Ill himself is terrified at the beginning that he will eventually be killed for the money. He forgets his fear, however, and calmly awaits the death he is cynically certain will come.

These two transitions, around which the play revolves--through no fault of the actors--are not uniformly smooth. The weakest scene in the play involves the transition from fear to calmness in Ill. The script has actor Medearis writhing on the ground in terror at one moment and existentially accepting his fate minutes later. Medearis is asked to change moods with impossible speed, and the scene is unconvincing.

Playing opposite Medearis, who is wonderful, is Lynn Milgrim as the old lady, and Miss Milgrim is even better. She handles her complex part with the versatility that Claire Zachanassian's changing mods require. Her role is the central one in the play: Miss Milgrim must be comic in one scene, tragic in the next, and tragicomic the rest of the time. She moves from being old and bitchy to being sad and tender with astonishing ease. The scene in the forest when she sits with Medearis who knows he will die that night is the most moving in The Visit.

Andreas Teuber, rapidly becoming one of the grand old men of Harvard undergraduate theatre, has turned in another superb performance as the town's old schoolmaster. Teuber plays a crucial part, for the old schoolmaster is the only one of the townsmen other than Alfred Ill himself who realizes the power of the temptation they face. Seduced by the money, he is conscious of what is happening to the townspeople to the end.

If you want to know who else is good, the program lists the names. The entire cast is brilliant; the only common failing is that many of the actors have difficulty looking and acting old Aside from Miss Milgrim, David Mills, the town's mayor, is best at it.

The Visit is a very thoughful play, well-worth seeing no matter who is in it. Anyone who misses the production at the Loeb with this cast is simply foolish.