Not so merry-go-round
Mark Amory
Round and round we go this year and possibly down and down we go as well. It is the 51st anniversary of the death of Schnitzler, so his copyright has expired and his most famous play is up for grabs: The Royal Exchange got in first, the RSC has followed swiftly, the BBC is to come and in March, Shared Experience is going to pre- sent one actor playing the five men, one ac- tress the five women. Commercially this ap- pears to heisound: at Manchester they have no stars, received poor reviews and are sold 134t. The reputation for naughty sophistica- tion lingers on after 60 years almost without P,,erformance'and is boffo at the box-office. dot that performances were totally for- °Idden. Our National Theatre expressed in- terest but was told that they must do his other plays as well and were not prepared to Mount a season. A good if romantic film was rnade in 1950, which took the liberty of introducing a compere and a bad film was „Made by Roger Vadim in 1964, the year he descended to Nutty Naughty Château. It is Presumably the influence of these that Makes us refer to this Austrian play as La Ronde rather than Reigen. The basic idea must have seemed dazzl- 1118. In ten scenes A meets, makes love with and Parts from B, who then meets, makes l c}ve with and parts from C, and so on until , encounters A and the circle is complete. It is a simple, I elegant and pleasingly sym- Metrical device which allows our attention t° wander from class to class and mood to 111°0d. It is also disastrously constricting, for it also means that there can be no fur- ther plot, no element of surprise and little eloPment of character. Schnitzler left a row of asterisks during which there was to blackout and music suggesting copula- `Ion (all too successfully in 1921, it was one ;."f the elements attacked by the prosecu- IN. The RSC refuses to turn off the lights sizi). we have mimed sex. Usually at first rrIPse of a clinch in a play my eyes flick to ic:le door because I no assume that we all know t w that this is unsatisfactory as a spec- tator sport and the point is going to be that the Pair are interrupted. No such luck here. Though it is always over with unrealistic Peed and there is variety of mood and suc- cess, the sex is monotonous and faintly em- barrassing; however there is no exposure of stage or even bottoms. At Manchester itage directions are observed but there are Int)stlY comical) sound effects, like bells, Percussion or, for a big if vulgar laugh, a „ear failing to start; there is also full, in- 'lie-round nudity, not at all embarrassing. There is another laugh in both produc- tions when the Poet tells the Sweet Girl (no one has a name in the programme, a bad sign) that she is 'Sacred Simplicity' and she replies, 'Ow. You are dripping wax on me', but such moments sof fun are few and far between. So if plot, character and comedy are discarded, in what are we supposed to be interested? Social observation perhaps; the Manchester production has been berated for transferring the setting to England and the Sixties, and rightly so. There is a severe loss in credibility without any compensating gain in immediacy. The soldier addressed the nursemaid as 'Miss Mary'; Miss Mary seemed to be employed to sunbathe by a very small tent and get the mature son of the house glasses of water; a young metropolitan wife was told she must never associate with anyone unless she was certain they led a blameless life; the private rooms of restaurants are a commonplace. Some of this seemed odd, some impossible. But though the RSC gained in charm as well as authenticity by staying in Vienna, no very telling social points are attempted, in- deed that lack of names is probably to sug- gest that these are timeless types who owe nothing to their background. There is no serious mention of religion, we know that moral scruples will be overcome and so do not believe in them, feelings other than lust are never more than tepid.
All that remains is Schnitzler's insight in- to what people then said before and after they went to bed with one another. This is convincing enough but hardly startling. The poor get more of a move on. People tell lies, especially before, and men tend to want to get away quickly while women would not mind hearing a few more com- pliments. Echoes and variations are plea- sant rather than subtle: when the Sweet Girl says that she has only been to a private room with a friend and her fiance we are doubtful; when she says it again in the same words we know she was lying both times. There is enjoyable irony: when the Young 'I'd like to tell you about my identity crisis.' Wife (excellently played by both Gabrielle Drake and Susan Fleetwood) listens to her husband pontificating on adultery, we have just seen her with her young lover and know we must be about to see him with somebody. For a moment there is even time for enough complexity to allow different in- terpretations: in Manchester the wife is aroused by the thought of her husband's past adventures, in London her eyes gleam with ideas about her own future. But the scenes which follow, though longer, are no deeper.
The opening of the superior RSC produc- tion promises a brilliant surface overlaying melancholy, a mood John Barton has evok- ed most movingly in the past. Soon, however, the accurate, ticking clock did not remind me so much of the advisability of gathering rose buds immediately as that there were still 40 minutes until we were allowed out to have dinner. Already this rarely seen work has been seen enough by me.
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