On the opening night of the JHUT production of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde, director John Astin introduced the play as one famous for the riot it had caused due to its scandalousness. The play may observe sex in an unabashed, comical manner, and shock the petticoats off of turn-of-the-century Victorian audiences, but as Astin said, "It is in many ways a highly nuanced play." The play, with a skilled set of actors, tackled the task of translating those nuances and succeeded, producing a comical but far from frivolous performance.
The play's structure is based on the dance ronde or reigen (in the play's original German), a dance performed in a chain. The cast of 10 performs 10 scenes, each featuring two actors and each portraying a different sexual scenario. Each actor acts in two adjacent scenes, joined by a different character each time. The play progresses thus, beginning with the Whore and the Soldier, then the Soldier and the Parlor Maid, and so on, until the play makes full circle with a scene between the Count and the Whore. The tagline of the play is therefore quite fitting: "A Merry-Go-Round of Love."
The play is interesting in its handling of both modern and historical issues. Sex is and has always been a prickly issue, one inseparable from social factors such as gender and social status. Both are dealt with through humorous interactions in the cast, such that you may not realize a pertinent point has been made until you think about it long afterwards.
There are a number of historical and modern issues in the play, unsurprising as the turn of the century was an intensely complicated time, one in which issues of gender and socioeconomics began percolating. The whole play is based around couples cheating on one another, and the one marriage in the play is no less exempt from promiscuity than the whore's relations.
That marriage, featured through the Young Husband (senior Kyle Dugan) and the Young Wife (senior Justine Wiesinger) from scenes four to six presents a rather absurd and out-of-place theme of jealousy.
The Wife's inquiry about her husband's past might be the only time jealousy is relevant - what does it matter, really, in the side relationships, which are infidelities themselves? Perhaps the play is pointing out the inevitability of such emotions as jealousy even in ridiculous situations. And that is certainly one issue that is pertinent to our time.
Another resonant issue is that of female sexuality, both the power and the stigma of it. In the Parlor Maid/Young Gentleman scene senior Laura Peralta wonderfully depicts a coquette wielding her sexual power over freshman Michael Alfieri's Gentleman, who himself is perfectly awkward and bumbling in his discomfort.
A good number of the female players are active in their sexual pursuits: the Actress (senior Liz Eldridge), and the Whore (junior Christen Cromwell), are examples. Scene six, between the Husband and the Little Miss (senior Yasmene Mumby), introduces the issue of the double standard between male and female sexuality. The Husband also expresses a strange amount of disgust for wives who cheat, even though he does the same thing.
But this play also gives insight into another time. The conflict of class dynamics is introduced in the scene between the Parlor Maid and the Young Gentleman and continues to the end of the play. All the pairings and their hinging between social statuses made a statement at the time of the play's publication on the fact that all social statuses misbehave, and it may be something we consider today as well in a time in which political figures' sex lives make the front page of the news.
All the subtleties and complexities of this both humorous and political statement of a play were made possible though excellent acting. Near all the characters were completely believable, for example junior Scott Morse's stuffy Count and senior Joe Micali's boisterous, licentious Soldier.
Occasionally a part seemed under- or over-acted: Peralta's Maid's words and actions were swallowed somewhat by the Soldier's in their scene together, and there seemed to be a slight disconnect between the two sides of Alfieri's Gentleman in his scenes. This latter issue was slight and may have well been an artistic choice (to depict how much we change in interactions with different people), but it was an interesting problem to take into account, considering the set-up of the play.
The body work in the play was also well-done. The first scene (the Whore and the Soldier) made no bones about getting the physical sexuality going: Within the first couple of minutes the two were petting each other. The scene between the Little Miss and the Poet (senior Tony Chiarito) in particular had great physical interactions: At points it was amazing how well Mumby could continue to enunciate her lines even when being tossed about like a rag doll by Chiarito in his Poet's passions.
The fact that the actors were in two adjacent scenes, contrasting their acting from scene to scene, also allowed for some great subtle shifts in character, for example in Wiesinger's Wife's facial expressions (she looks up skeptically from her book at the sound of her Husband's entrance) and speech patterns (from rapidly pattering with the Gentleman to more meek and quiet with her husband).
Another issue was that only in this scene was there a slight disjunction between the costumes and set (both beautifully and accurately done in late Victorian style), and the language, which sometimes seemed modern enough to be clipped from a sitcom ("I've never banged a name like that," or "baby," for example). John Astin said, however, that "much of the modern sound comes from Schnitzler's original: just one of the ways he was ahead of his time." What little was altered was done with the original text on hand and done to maintain modern credibility.
The set construction was impressive which, though composed of only two major components and some minor ones, was very effective.
The scene changes went smoothly thanks in large part to this creative set-up, which included a variable bed. The bed and its backboard were originally shrouded to depict the outdoor scenes, then they were unveiled for scene three in the Young Gentleman's house.
It made quite an impact for the lights to come up and for the audience to immediately see a huge bed on the stage. The backboard had a round panel that was reversed for each scene, with images on each side, to show different rooms. The curtains around the piece's window were also rearranged from scene to scene.
The lighting, for the most part complemented the action of the set quite well: neither too bright, blinding the actors, nor too dim, obscuring the action. There was one timed cue (when the curtains were drawn in the Young Gentleman's room) which went smoothly, and the use of one bright overhead light in the first scene effectively depicted a street lamp's lighting.
Overall this production, even on opening night, handled the given task wonderfully. All the actors (who could rehearse in groups of only two or three at a time, thanks to the play's set-up) had great chemistry, and though the occasional line was swallowed and sometimes the post-coital scenes were less than believable, the performance was thoroughly enjoyable.
This play at the end certainly left the audience amused, but this was no shallow romp. You might be surprised if you go into the play thinking a 19th-century German playwright has nothing to say about sex and gender today.
JHUT's production of La Ronde wll continue this weekend in the Merrick Barn on Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 13 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 for students, $13 for seniors/staff/faculty/alumni and $15 general admission.
