A significant theater scandal broke out in Berlin in 1920 after the performance of Arthur Schnitzler’s “Reigen.” Because a man and a woman meet in each of the ten scenes—all of which follow the identical formula—and engage in passionate flings. Soldiers with young girls, office workers with superiors, squeamish writers with admirers—all are constantly moving up and down the social and economic ladder. The crowd gasped because of the “mess,” even though Schnitzler just used dots in the text to denote the act itself. The controversy obscured any structures that the author may have criticized in the essay. Due to his discomfort, Schnitzler put a performance ban on the work that lasted until 1982.
There is no concern that the actual discussion will be lost in the uproar with Yana Ross’ new Salzburg Festival production of Arthur Schnitzler’s “Reigen.” There isn’t much excitement, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there isn’t much sex either—at least not consenting sex—but debate is what matters most. There is little more to be gained from sex as such in terms of shock, and even with more explicit shagging, it is difficult to bring the “round dance effect” into the present.
Yana Ross is still seeking the controversy, but in a different way. Although she removes the sexual component, she still seeks to disrupt social taboos by bringing fresh conversations and exposing the institutions that support sex. The systems in which it occurs are scandalous, not the sex itself. in order for the viewer to twitch similarly. The taboos include rape and the victim-blaming that follows, Internet stalking, homosexuality, owning firearms, classism, and women whose jobs depend on stupid men. In one of the best moments, a worn-out mother freaks out and has a disturbing dream in which she murders her three kids: Regretting Motherhood.
A unified picture has not yet been created from ten sequences that were meticulously pieced together.
In order to create this “round dance,” a joint production with the Zurich theatre, ten authors each rewrote one of the ten scenes. Leif Randt, Mikhail Durnenkov, Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, Lydia Haider, Lela Slimani, Sharon Dodua Otoo (who wrote the maternity scene), and Lukas Bärfuss are also present. Except for the fact that they each deal with a discussion, primarily from the standpoint of women, they have nothing whatever to do with one another in terms of style or content.
Therefore, from a purely technical standpoint, Ross finds it challenging to somehow tie the scenes on stage together: The setting is reminiscent of a restaurant from the 1970s, and the back wall of the stage has a sloping mirror wall that reflects everything twice for the viewer. A restaurant is a setting for polite conversation, flirting, and chance encounters. But there’s also a front that frequently makes everything appear gloomy. Ross, however, makes do with video recordings, odd transitional choreographies between the scenes, and the equally ambiguous assignment to the actors, if possible to handle the table setting a lot, because the very attractive room (stage and costumes: Márton gh) makes no sense at all in half of the scenes. While others do their hair with forks and someone keeps pouring theater champagne into plastic glasses, a lesbian woman (Sibylle Canonica) cuts a chunk of flesh off of her lesbian girlfriend (Tabita Johannes), who hasn’t been outed. The staging, a vibrant assortment of scenes, rattles a lot but doesn’t assist.
That is a challenge. The staging’s mentality is the other. You don’t have to be offended, of course, that this “round dance” has so little Schnitzler outside the attention-grabbing moniker. For instance, director Leonie Böhm has been re-staging ancient works in a vibrant, feminist manner and with a great lot of humor for years. She does this by distilling the works to their essential meaning. But with her, the timeless is always improved by her original appearance.
However, everything in Yana Ross’ “Reigen” is obvious and solely intended to spark discussion. Which contemporary issues need to be discussed on stage immediately, goes the motto? Let’s list everything! Even if Schnitzler’s work already incorporates classism, sexism, the subjugation of women, and social dependency, she doesn’t even offer the original, which is directly subtle, the ability to spark those discussions.
Even more monotonous than impact theater is theater that just considers arguments.
The new taboos are nevertheless important and have a place in the theater, despite this. Just to be on the safe side morally, it is debatable if erasing everything that is already there and painting over it—deleting allegedly problematic elements like sex scenes instead of presenting them deftly—is always the wisest course of action in art. However, the most important thing to remember is that debate-based theater is nearly always more dull than effect-based drama. So there is no answer in having no sex.
When you look at them apart from the worn-out arguments, there are just two picturesque glimmers of hope: In the aforementioned scene from Sharon Dodua Otoo’s excellent novel Regretting Motherhood, Lena Schwarz plays a frustrated mother who takes five-minute breaks from her children to prevent going bonkers: “The reason I have children is because abortion was not allowed to be advertised in the gynecologist’s practice.” A genuine moment of connection and desperation between two women imprisoned in different positions occurs when Yodit Tarikwa is introduced to her as a childless career lady.
The second scene is a grandiose scene by Russian author Mikhail Durnenkov, who actually had already finished his text contribution but completely threw it out the window and rewrote it after the start of the Russian war of aggression: a straightforward Skype conversation between a mother and son that viewers can see on video. In it, a son (Valentin Novopolskij), who is also Russian, explains to his mother (Inga Mashkarina), why the “special operation” in Ukraine is actually a war, why he would leave the nation, and how his gay friend is able to be gay. He and the mother both start to cry. This scenario embodies the suffering caused by the love of parents and children, as well as the insurmountable gaps in human understanding. It’s a text that doesn’t care if someone had consensual sex or not, that doesn’t consider its potential consequences, and about which Schnitzler could care less. only because it resulted from a deep personal necessity. That continues to produce the most fascinating work.