Before-and-after  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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La Ronde is the title usually given to Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play Reigen. It was not performed until 1920, when it was shut down on its first production in Berlin on December 23, resulting in an obscenity trial. The play presents a series of "before and after" tableaux of interconnected characters in different sexual situations. The play scrutinizes the sexual morals and class ideology of its day and may be described as a bedroom farce.

The play caused a scandal because one of its principal themes was the transmission of syphilis in all layers of Viennese society.

Publication history

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. It was not performed until 1921, when it was immediately shut down and deemed an obscene work.

Adaptation

Theater

David Hare's 1998 play The Blue Room was inspired by it, as was Jack Heifner's 2004 play Seduction and Michael John LaChiusa's musical Hello Again (1994).

Film

Three films were also 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.

Plot

The play takes place in Vienna in the 1890's 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.

Both the German Reigen and the French Ronde mean Round dance.

Scenes

1. The Whore and the Soldier
2. The Soldier and the Parlor Maid
3. The Parlor Maid and the Young Gentleman
4. The Young Gentleman and the Young Wife
5. The Young Wife and The Husband
6. The Husband and the Little Miss
7. The Little Miss and the Poet
8. The Poet and the Actress
9. The Actress and the Count
10. The Count and the Whore

See also

• Ludwig Marcuse's Obscene: The history of an indignation (1962).