Playwrights: Arthur Schnitzler, David Hare, Joe DiPietro. At: Street Tempo Theatre at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets: 1-773-327-5252; www.stage773.com; $28 (or $60/all three). Runs through: April 14
Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play, La Ronde, broke new ground for sexual frankness and for its often-imitated structure of two-character scenes in which Person A sexes Person B, then B sexes C, C does D and so on through 10 couplings back to A. Schnitzler didn't show sex on stage or discuss who did what to whom. His interest was why people from diverse socio-economic strata come together and what they seek, from selfish one-offs to those wanting more than sex, as expressed in pre-coital and post-coital conversations.
Schnitzler's original yielded scores of translations and adaptations, among them several musicals and at least two LGBT versions. Street Tempo Theatre offers two adaptations and the original in La Ronde Project, each production featuring a different cast and director. I couldn't see La Ronde itself, but I caught The Blue Room, a 1998 adaptation by Brit author David Hare, and Joe DiPietro's 2008 gay take, Fucking Men. Presented in rotating repertory, each play runs 75-85 minutes.
It's an interesting idea but very familiar material. Hare and DiPietro adhere closely to Schnitzler in characterizations and rationales for the liaisons, so the works themselves are not particularly fresh. DiPietro's language is far more explicit than the others, but there's little that's graphic in these mountings (if you'll pardon the word choice). Schnitzler's soldier and a newbie street girl become Hare's taxi driver and young girl and DiPietro's street hustler and straight Army boy. Schnitzler has a count who becomes merely an aristocrat for Hare and a famous TV talk show host for DiPietro. Schnitzler and Hare define their character only by labels"student," "poet," "actress," "model"while DiPietro gives each character a name.
As directed by Tim Curtis (La Ronde); Brian Posen and Cody Spellman (The Blue Room); and Scott Olsen (Fucking Men), the three productions play smoothly and intelligently on Dave Ferguson's generic, almost-classical thrust unit set, nicely lit by Clair Chrzan. These are not shows which have stars (notwithstanding the London production of The Blue Room, which starred Nicole Kidman as all five women) so it's difficult to single out anyone for glory or shortcomings, although Matt Gall and Jack Bourgeois offered deft comic relief playing parallel characters (both playwrights) in The Blue Room and Fucking Men, as both Hare and DiPietro had fun at the expense of authorial pretensions. I think it's retrograde, however, that among 30 actors only one isn't white, and that one (Asian) is required by the script.
See one or see all three, La Ronde Project offers a good night out if not a great one. You are sure to find a conversation that hits home among the longings for more, the sexual ennui and the excitement of new couplings.