Many problems and little sex in the new Salzburg “round dance”
“After Arthur Schnitzler: Reigen” is on the program booklet, but little is left of the former scandalous piece. The structure of the two-person scenes, in which one character with a new partner competes in the next episode, was abandoned, as was the sexual act – indicated with dashes in the original – as always the same center of the different couple dances. this first new drama production at the Salzburg Festival probably has its services.
It was a long-planned and not without risk undertaking that celebrated its acclaimed, but not too frenetically acclaimed world premiere on Thursday as a co-production with the Zurich Schauspielhaus in the Salzburg scene: ten authors each rewrite a “round dance” scene (an idea , who have also had Barbara Rieger, Ute Liepold and Bernd Liepold-Mosser in recent years) without having any idea what the previous and the following scene will look like. They secured the participation of a respected international team of writers – and got very, very different solutions to the task at hand.
In the overall view, sex and desire are no longer exposed as the secret driving forces of the most diverse behaviors, seduction strategies and power games, but rather a contemporary social panorama emerges in which attraction and repulsion determines our coexistence on the most diverse levels. They don’t sleep together anymore. We have enough other problems for that.
Director Yana Ross, who had the challenging task of putting these heterogeneous ingredients together, and her set designer Márton Ágh chose a posh restaurant as the setting. It is not an easy task to keep track of all the characters that appear and leave, who come from different dialogues and sometimes sit at the same table. “My name is Arthur and I don’t know anything, baby,” says Lydia Haider (the only Austrian among the lyricists) in the first scene, apologizing to a blackhead who dutifully spoons out his soup. Altogether less civilized supper than quite a lot of china smashed. In times of frugality, however, it is only plastic plates and glasses that are swept off the tables again and again.
Some have probably seriously tried to transfer their Schnitzler to the present day. Leif Randt lets a couple (Matthias Neukirch and Yodit Tarikwa), who got married in lockdown, draw a first summary of their marriage for the first wedding anniversary. Hengameh Yaghoobifarah relies on same-sex attraction, but makes the courtship of an older poet (Sibylle Canonica) for an attractive young woman (Tabita Johannes) no less desperate than in a man-woman constellation, such as Jonas Hassen Khemiri between the with dirty Money offered as a financier count and the actress with producer ambitions developed.
“The soldier and the parlor maid” also has a structure reminiscent of Schnitzler’s original, which Sofi Oksanen convincingly translates into a contemporary dialogue between a food messenger and “troll soldiers” used for various messages of hate on the internet. While panels hanging above the stage are assembled to form a video projection surface in parts of this scene, Mikhail Durnenkov’s contribution is shown entirely on video. It is the dialogue that is most to be taken to Schnitzler, but also by far the most.
The 43-year-old Russian author, who had already been persecuted in 2014 for criticizing the annexation of Crimea, fled to Finland when war broke out. Its first scene was about an elderly gentleman and a young woman meeting in a hotel room for an affair. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he wrote a whole new scene in which a young Russian calls his parents via Skype to tell them that he is leaving his home country with his wife and child so that at least his son can grow up in freedom to allow. Inga Mashkarina, Valentin Novopolskij and Vladimir Serov play this scene in Russian and it hits you in the heart. This has nothing to do with Schnitzler’s “Reigen”. But everything with great theater that focuses on humanity and topicality.
The ensemble of the Zurich Schauspielhaus meets the many challenges with skill and ambition and also masters the intermediate choreographies by Yana Ross with flying colours. Incidentally, in two scenes, an Austrian pistol has prominent supporting roles. The only (self) penetration of the evening is reserved for a Glock in the hand of a soldier. Schnitzler’s strokes, which once caused a scandal, didn’t even have to be deleted in the new versions.
“Reigen” after Arthur Schnitzler, new version of the ten dialogues by Lydia Haider, Sofi Oksanen, Leïla Slimani, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Leif Randt, Mikhail Durnenkov, Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, Kata Wéber, Jonas Hassen Khemiri and Lukas Bärfuss. Director: Yana Ross. Stage: Márton Ágh, Costumes: Marysol del Castillo, Music: Knut Jensen, Video: Algirdas Gradauskas. With Sibylle Canonica, Urs Peter Halter, Tabita Johannes, Michael Neuenschwander, Matthias Neukirch, Lena Schwarz, Yodit Tarikwa, Inga Mashkarina, Valentin Novopolskij, Vladimir Serov. Co-production of the Salzburg Festival with the Zurich Schauspielhaus, Scene Salzburg, further performances: July 31, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, salzburgerfestspiele.at; Premiere in Zurich: 17.9., schauspielhaus.ch