WHAT GOES AROUND TRON, GLASGOW
IT STARTS in fine style, this new take on Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 Viennese masterpiece La Ronde by Scotland’s Makar, Liz Lochhead; for in this version, the first pairing – in Schnitzler’s famous “daisy-chain” of licit and illicit sexual encounters – is between two Scottish actors rehearsing a two-handed version of Schintzler’s original play, under the direction of a truly annoying Russian woman director.
Along with all the other characters in the play, the two are brilliantly played by Keith Fleming and Nicola Roy; and in no time, their initial thespian fling has spun off into a merrygo-round of clever social observation, from unfaithful husband to vengeful wife to kitchen-building carpenter to harassed single mum to prissy online dater Steven, and back again to the original actress.
The problem, though – in Tony Cownie’s otherwise sharp production – is that this circle takes just under an hour to complete; after which the play wanders off for another 25 minutes into a strangely static series of incidents surrounding the final rehearsal of the Schnitzler production, featuring a Michael Marra-like music man, the Russian lady director, and a now-possibly-pregnant young ingenue.
The show ends abruptly as she falls to the floor in a dead faint, and rehearsals are suspended for the day.
And if Lochhead’s point, in extending the play, is that even the neatest of sexual daisychains can have messy human consequences, it’s made in an oddly diffuse way, with far too many theatrical in-jokes; slightly reducing the impact of this otherwise clever and timely take on Schnitzler’s enduring classic. l Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on Friday and Saturday and on tour around Scotland until 8 October