NEVER TOO OLD TO GO ROUND AGAIN…
In Arthur Schnitzler ’s LA RONDE was a scandal: a chain of sketched sexual encounters in which one of each couple moved on to a new seduction; Count, whore, soldier. and so forth. Sigmund Freud liked it though: he wrote to Schnitzler “”you have learned through intuition—though actually as a result of sensitive introspection—everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons.”
The sense of emotional understanding, at least, is reproduced in Sonja Linden’s new 90-minute version for VIsible – a company founded to make use of older professional performers.
There are seven encounters: first former spouses meet at a wedding and are tempted, then we meet one of them in old age and dementia, with her fond second husband (a wrenchingly touching moment thanks to Holly de Jong’s remarkable performance as the wife). But that husband is then awkwardly exploring whether he is drawn to a male sex worker; who we then meet with a very old bedridden widow who craves once again to feel human touch…and on it goes until the first character finds a final resolution.
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All the main protagonists are in middle age or older, and the theme of continuing desire and yearning for love develops a real earnest beauty as it does on: wooing, betrayal, tactility, memory, confusion, the lure of youth, the advancing shadow of decrepitude and dementia, the perennial hope. Linden and director Anna Ledwich, however, have framed it as circus – a pun on “ronde’ – as we surround the action and are lectured , whip-cracked and threatened by a Weimaresque ringmistress in fishnets and top hat , who introduces each section as an act. And indeed between the acts some good professional work on the aerial silks is there to divert us, while the rest of the cast doa few dances and juggle-and-hoop tricks not quite as smooth as they might be.
To be honest, this presentation distracted more than it engaged me; we are all now well used to La Soiree and the paraphernalia and Weimar-wannabe cabaret style of the genre. But despite mild irritation – and the ringmistress was perfectly competent, within what was awkwardly required of her – it won me round with the very fine acting, economical scripting and a sort of firm, adult reality of character. It’s a curiosity worth seeing.
box office 0207 407 0234 southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
rating Three 
theatreCat 