La Ronde at Riverside Studios

A soldier sleeps with a whore. The soldier then sleeps with a maid. The maid then sleeps with her master. The master then sleeps with a well-to-do married woman. The well-to-do married woman then sleeps with her husband. The husband then sleeps with a local boy. The local boy then sleeps with a French playwright. The French playwright then sleeps with his lead actress. The lead actress then sleeps with a count, who is also a soldier. And finally the count, who is also a soldier, then sleeps with a whore. This is not pornography. It’s better.

These are the ten scenes of Neil Sheppeck’s wonderful re-imagination of the controversial and dangerous play: La Ronde, originally entitled Reigen by original playwright Arthur Schnitzler. Schnitzler himself got into a fair amount of trouble thanks to the writing of this play. It seemed that after initial sales success in 1903 in Vienna, being censored in 1904, and finally publicly performing the play some two decades later in Germany, still nobody was ready for such scrutinizing of the sexual morals and class ideologies of the time, especially from a Jew. Schnitzler was labelled all the worst things by anti-semites and racists.

His triumph however, in no small way, is the re-telling of this story in an excellently updated fashion by the Love & Madness theatre troupe, far beyond his death, and far away from old oppressions. And I have to say the whole evening was utterly compelling from start to finish. Almost immediately after nestling into my seat was I greeted with an intense choreographed fusion of passionate sex and the Tango, all accompanied by the excellent music of The Gotan Project. The Gotan Project would provide the soundtrack for all of the sex on the night, and all of the sex on the night was to be enacted through the Tango. Brilliant.

There was no shortage of entertaining and extremely heartfelt dialogue either, truly a testament to the commited acting of the players and the timeless nature of the themes. The inherent loneliness that each character feels and all of their desires to be wholly loved by the singularly elusive ideal of monogamy is something that at one time or another most people will identify with. Certainly, I could see that this play has no class boundaries and is written in such an honest way that only a stone would not find something to empathise with. The search for love is a complicated and simple thing and is as much to do with timing as anything else. Hence, I suspect, the dance.

I highly recommend this brilliant play, and you could do a hell of a lot worse by going to see it performed by another troupe. Love & Madness make this play their own…like they had sex with it…like they taught it to dance…like they fell in love.

La Ronde is showing until Saturday 21 March
Riverside Studios
Crisp Road
Hammersmith
W6 9RL

Box office: 020 8237 1111

Image: Lucia McAnespie and Ellie Turner – courtesy of Luke Varley