La Ronde serves up the sexual merry-go-round

A play with sexual encounters as its premise is likely to read very differently today, than it did when first written in 1897.

Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde (orginally Reigen in German) is made up of ten scenes, each one being a sexual encounter, but involving a character from the previous scene. In this way, we ‘do the rounds’, starting with the whore and the soldier, moving on to the soldier and the maid, then the maid and the young gentleman (or student, in this production), and so on, to end with the whore again, in a tryst with a count (called a ‘tech king’ here).

Obviously, none of the characters are monogamous, and when the play was first performed in Berlin 1920, it was scandalous, despite Berlin reputed to being such a liberal city at the time, as famously depicted in Cabaret. The scandal, however, may have had as much to do with moral values as with Schnitzler using sex to slash class barriers.

But a lot has happened in the intervening century, both in terms of morality and class. We’ve had Freud (who apparently praised Schnitzler for his intuition) world wars and the death of empire, followed by the rise of democracies. We’ve had the emergence of the teenager, rock ‘n roll and rebellion, waves of feminism, post-colonialism, legalisation of homosexuality (in many but not all countries, unfortunately), HIV, and most recently, wokeism and decolonisation. Also, of course, the internet, Tinder, Grindr, and pornography-on-demand.

Sexual mores have changed, drastically. Whether sex has changed is an open question which is probably very hard to empirically answer, but I suspect it has remained, in essence, much the same. Which leaves La Ronde no longer at all scandalous.

On the contrary, rather than offering temptation to join the merry-go-round, seen from our current viewpoint, the circular search seemed hollow, and sad in that there was no indication of fulfilment. Which is different to frisson, which it does elicit, as evidenced by the expressions and antics of the young generation in the front row on opening night. But scandal – no. But I’m guessing, if the youth were carefully questioned, they may also conclude the circular dance lacks any centre. Which is not to say it is not enticing. If this is true, a century has added another layer to the roundabout, in that perhaps, as much as sex is to be celebrated and enjoyed, do we feel a subtle longing to for the element of mystery (not bigotry and shame – note!) that presumably existed before sex was a continuous vision thrust before our eyes on hand-held globally connected little computers.

Either way, it seems to contain a caution that the dance has no substance, only pleasure, short-lived at best, and even that is not guaranteed, and comes with the possibility of regret at allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to someone who is callous.

This caution is excellently conveyed by the cast, five of whom are part of the Baxter’s Fire’s Burning resident company, who handled their scenes with aplomb.

Played on a bare thrust stage, this was not an easy play to direct, but Leila Henriques confirmed her excellence, along with Crystal Finck, who took care of the equally challenging choreography and helped tease out the hidden genius in the play. This is that each actor has to reveal at least two sides to a single character, and this case, with six actors fulfilling ten characters, most had to reveal two sides of two different characters.

This was a slow burn, as it is afterwards that some of the pieces fall together; the pace of change is too rapid to really take it in while watching. This settling reveals that it is the Young Wife (played here by Berenice Barbier, who was a standout) and the Husband (played by Carlo Daniels) are the pillars around which the play turns. In the morning after, it was their lives I wondered about.

La Ronde is playing at the Baxter Studio theatre until 12 July.