The Damned Tickets

Tony Award-winning director Ivo van Hove comes to the Armory with the North American premiere of his adaptation of Luchino Visconti’s desperately dark drama, performed by the prestigious Comédie-Française in their first New York appearance in over a decade.

Using the screenplay rather than Visconti’s film as a starting point, van Hove traces the disintegration of the wealthy Essenbeck family and their steel dynasty during the seizure of power of the Nazis in 1933.

The historic walls of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall form the backdrop for this remarkable production, which employs cameramen prowling amongst the actors to catch close ups of key moments that are projected on a massive screen to reflect the ideological debauchery of a society ready to make the most venomous alliances for the benefit of its sole economic profits. This sharply drawn familial chronicle combines intrigue and ambition with betrayal and murder in the insidious struggle for power—tragic themes that are still rivetingly resonant today.