Review: Sweet Nothings, at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Despite pursuing a parallel career in medicine, Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) wrote nearly as many plays as Shakespeare.
His plays and stories chronicle the sexual manners of Vienna around 1900. Freud thought Schnitzler arrived intuitively at many of his own conclusions, while another notable Viennese resident, Adolf Hitler, summed up his work as “Jewish filth”.
Here he is probably best known for La Ronde, which became a classic film directed by Max Ophuls, and more recently for the novella Dream Story, which became a rather less classic film under the title Eyes Wide Shut.
But it is still a great rarity to see a Schnitzler play on the British stage. This one has been newly adapted by David Harrower and directed for the Young Vic by the distinguished Swiss director Luc Bondy. It has the feeling of a collector’s item, but it’s an interesting one and beautifully done.
Fritz and Theo, two young part-time soldiers, spend a day of boozy indulgence with Theo’s girlfriend Mitzi and her friend Christine.
Theo hopes to use Christine to lure Fritz from his infatuation with a married woman. Fritz and Christine are taken with each other, but their relationship is threatened when Fritz’s illicit affair is discovered and he is challenged to a duel.
It is a seemingly slight story, but one packed with detailed social observation. The second act, for instance, introduces the wonderful character of Christine’s starchy, busybody neighbour, Katharina – a performance of award-winning quality from Hayley Carmichael.
The circular set represents Fritz’s apartment in the first act and the more spartan one occupied by Christine and her father, a musician at the Opera, in the second. The absence of walls allows the action to flow freely between interior and exterior. The weakness is that the second act, which puts the lovelorn Christine in the foreground, begins to drag, despite a good performance from Kate Burdette. Natalie Dormer, as the more worldly-wise Mitzi, is an enlivening presence.
The play dates from 1895 but the costumes suggest the early 1920s, making the military code of honour seem a little anachronistic.
Running time: Two hours, 25 minutes. Until Saturday.
Rating: 4/5
