The Blue Room: Freely Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde

David Hare

Grove Press, 1998 - Drama - 85 pages

Arthur Schnitzler described Reigen, his loose series of sexual sketches, as "completely unprintable," and indeed its premiere in 1921 spurred an obscenity suit. It was only when Max Oph"ls made his famous film in 1950 that the work became better known as La Ronde. Now David Hare has reset these circular scenes of love and betrayal in the present day, with a cast of two actors playing a succession of characters whose sexual lives enmesh like a daisy chain. The Blue Room is a brilliant meditation on men and women, sex and social class, actors and the theater. With deft insight about the gap between the sexes, The Blue Room takes the treacherous Freudian subject of projection and desire and reinvents it in a bittersweet landscape that is both eternal and completely up-to-date.

Contents

• The Girl and the Cab Driver: 1
• The Cab Driver and the Au Pair: 6
• The Au Pair and the Student: 13
• The Student and the Married Woman: 20
• The Married Woman and the Politician: 31
• The Politician and the Model: 42
• The Model and the Playwright: 52
• The Playwright and the Actress: 63
• The Actress and the Aristocrat: 72
• The Aristocrat and the Girl: 81

About the author

The son of Clifford and Agnes Gilmour Hare, David Hare was born on June 5, 1947, in St. Leonards, England. After graduating from Jesus College in Cambridge in 1968 with the honors Master of Arts degree in English, Hare went to work for the film company A.B. Pathe. Soon after, Hare co-founded the Portable Theatre Company, a touring experimental theatre group. While serving as the theatre's director from 1968 to 1971, Hare wrote his first plays. In 1970, Hare won the Evening Standard Drama Award for most promising new playwright for Slag, his first major play. Two years later, after Portable Theatre declared bankruptcy, Hare became resident dramatist at Nottingham Playhouse. Hare also co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Group and served as its director from 1975 to 1980. During these years Hare produced many more plays, including The Great Exhibition, Brassneck, and Knuckle, the first of Hare's plays to be produced in London's West End. In addition to directing his own plays, Hare has directed such works as The Party by Trevor Griffiths, Devil's Island by Tony Bicat, and King Lear, with Anthony Hopkins in the title role. In 1982, Hare opened his own film company, Greenpoint Films. Among the screenplays written by Hare are Plenty, Paris by Night, and Wetherby, a story about repressed passions among members of the middle class.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Blue Room: Freely Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde
• Author: David Hare
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Grove Press, 1998
• ISBN: 080213596X, 9780802135964
• Length: 85 pages
• Subjects: Drama / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Drama / General; Drama / LGBTQ