Arthur Schnitzler

La Ronde: a Play Arthur Schnitzler

Publisher Marketing: Arthur Schnitzler - La Ronde - A Play - (5m, 5f) La Ronde (the original German name is Reigen) is a play written by Arthur Schnitzler in 1897 and first printed in 1900 for his friends. It scrutinizes the sexual morals and class ideology of its day through a series of encounters between pairs of characters (shown before or after a sexual encounter). By choosing characters across all levels of society, the play offers social commentary on how sexual contact transgresses boundaries of class. Schnitzler's play was not publicly performed until 1920, on 23 December 1920 in Berlin and 1 February 1921 in Vienna. (An unauthorized production was mounted earlier, in Budapest in 1912.)[3] The play elicited violent critical and popular reactions against its subject matter. La Ronde (the original German name is Reigen) was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophuls. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under its French title. Roger Vadim's film Circle of Love (1964) and Otto Schenk's Der Reigen (1973) are also based on the play. More recently, in Fernando Meirelles' film 360, Schnitzler's play was provided with a new version, as has been the case with many other TV and film productions. Contributor Bio:  Schnitzler, Arthur Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), an Austrian physician, wrote novels, short stories, and plays, one of which, "La Ronde", was the basis of a successful film. Roger Byers is an independent scholar and translator in Bradenton, Florida. Russell A. Berman is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Stanford University.