It's day one of rehearsals of La Ronde, that sophisticated, worldly, once-forbidden hundred year-old classic, oft-called 'a sexual daisy chain'. An actor and an actress, strangers till this morning, sit down together for a drink to break the ice. One thing leads to another... Read more …
Sex? The most fun you can have without laughing. Well, when it comes to human beings, you've got to laugh. Two actors play seven characters in this sparkling contemporary sex comedy. A game of consequences and connections, a riff on modern mores and manners that'll entertain and make you think. Before you make that move? Aye mibbe!
If Lochhead’s point, in extending the play, is that even the neatest of sexual daisy-chains 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.
The results are wildly variable.
Tremendous fun all round!
In this Traverse/Cumbernauld Theatre co-production director Tony Cownie pulls it off well (ooh, missus) although the voiceover linking device between (sex) acts is a tad awkward.
Although it is an often funny sex comedy, Lochhead’s play lacks the political punch of Schnitzler’s original.
This dénouement proves frustratingly inconclusive, and while, on the whole, Lochhead’s script is insightful on the absurdity of sexual coupling, you leave wishing she had found a more elegant way to square her circle.
On Tour, from Wednesday September 9, 2015, until Thursday October 8, 2015.
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