Word: schnitzler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...true love, is what makes the world go round in Arthur Schnitzler's satire on love-making in 19th century Vienna. His ten "dialogues" on a common theme have been given probably as many varying interpretations as productions--from the ironic bitterness of the New York Circle Theater's presentation last year to the delicate waltz-like charm of the movie version. Theatergoers expecting one or the other will be either shocked or delightfully surprised, according to their appetites, at the less complicated rollicking sybaritics of the Actors Company production...
Whether or not Schnitzler had in mind any moral statement about the futility of finding enduring values in sex alone is a question of little concern to director John Heffernan. The senior member of the company at twenty-five, Mr. Heffernan puts an appropriately youthful zest into the whole production. He finds little irony in the lines and focuses the humor on desire, social inhibitions, frustration, and zany hypocrisy. A sociology of sex emerges which stresses the primacy of simple desire over attempts to cloak it in social idealization. For any who don't already know the plot, girl meets...
Female Lead: Edith Iselin, as Young Wife in Schnitzler's "Reigen" (HDC); Lisa Rosenfarb, as Jocasta in Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" (Eliot); Lisa Rosenfarb, as Gertrude in Shakespeare's "Hamlet...
...Arthur Schnitzler's ingenious merry-go-round is twirling again, and quite gayly. In the unlikely case that you haven't heard, the play is about sex: a prostitute sleeps with a soldier, who sleeps with a parlor maid, who sleeps with a young gentleman, who ...and, after ten characters, back to the prostitute. Each affair makes a seperate seduction scene, usually broken in the middle by a delicately significant blackout...
...thread that connects the ten playlets is both clever and amusing, but although the individual scenes are usually witty, they are nearly inherently dangerously repetitive. Schnitzler played with a good idea a bit too long. Yet despite the fact that even seduction is not infallibly theatrical, there is ample comedy. The wit and sparkle within Schnitzler's idea comes from the delicate linguistic flirting with sex, from the inevitable dimension of anticipation in each scene, from individual characterizations, and from the differences between seductions...