La Ronde (play)
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La Ronde is the title usually given to Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play Reigen. It was not performed until 1921, when it was immediately shut down and deemed an obscene work. It presents a series of tableaux of interconnected characters in different sexual situations. The play scrutinizes the sexual morals and class ideology of its day.
The play caused a scandal because one of its principal themes was the transmission of syphilis in all layers of Viennese society.
The text was first published in 1900 for friends of the author. The first edition in Vienna was in 1903 and was a success with the sale of 40 thousand copies. It was censored there in 1904 but found another publisher in Germany in 1908.
Both the German Reigen and the French Ronde mean Round dance.
[edit] Plot outline
The play takes place in Vienna in the 1890s and consists of ten love scenes between pairs of people. There are ten characters, each playing in two adjacent scenes (counting the last as adjacent to the first). The play starts with The Whore and The Soldier, followed by the Soldier and The Parlor Maid, and so on in this fashion until making full circle with The Whore back in the first scene.
Scenes:
- The Whore and the Soldier
- The Soldier and the Parlor Maid
- The Parlor Maid and the Young Gentleman
- The Young Gentleman and the Young Wife
- The Young Wife and The Husband
- The Husband and the Little Miss
- The Little Miss and the Poet
- The Poet and the Actress
- The Actress and the Count
- The Count and the Whore
[edit] Adaptations
Three films were based on the play: the 1964 film La Ronde of the same title, directed by Roger Vadim, Reigen (the original title of Schnitzler's play), a 1973 film directed by Otto Schenk, and La Ronde (1950 film) by Max Ophüls.
David Hare's play The Blue Room, first staged at the Donmar Warehouse in 1998, was inspired by it, as was Jack Heifner's 2004 play Seduction and Michael John LaChiusa's musical Hello Again (1994).
In 1989, Hungarian playwright Mihály Kornis adapted the drama to refer to the Hungarian society of the period. In this version, the Young Gentleman and the Husband are Communist politicians.
A forthcoming German film version, Unschuld, will feature Luise Berndt, Kai Wiesinger and Nadeshda Brennicke among others.
