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by Arthur Schnitzler, adapted and directed by Morris Panych

Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto

January 9-February 10, 2013

Max: “The fact is, the woman you have in your life is never the woman you want”.

The main reason to see The Amorous Adventures of Anatol is that this 1893 comedy by the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler is so seldom produced.  Schnitzler’s most famous play is La Ronde (Reigen in the original German) from 1897 which Soulpepper will be staging in March and April this year.  Since Anatol anticipates many themes Schnitzler develops in La Ronde, seeing both will provide a mini-course in fin-de-siècle Austrian drama and help complement the offerings at the Shaw Festival that has never produced a play by Schnitzler.

Is there a reason beyond filling in one’s knowledge of 19th-century drama?  Well, there is.  The play as adapted by Morris Panych is quite amusing and features a wonderfully lively performance by Nicole Underhay as seven different women.  The problem is that Panych is concerned that the play be funny that he neglects its darker implications.  He also doesn’t seem to realize that the play has a dramatic arc.

Anatol (for that is the full original title) was groundbreaking in many ways.  In theme, it was one of the first plays in which recreational sex was discussed matter-of-factly on stage.  In structure, it may be the first play to translate the musical form of a theme and variations to the stage.  In a time when the well-made four-act play was the norm, Schnitzler wrote a play consisting of seven scenes in which the same situation seems to repeat itself albeit with significant alterations.  To write a play about repetition and to make that inform its very structure marks Anatol as far ahead of its time and a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd and of Samuel Beckett, who made repetition one of his prime themes.  

The seven scenes focus on Anatol (Mike Shara), a wealthy Viennese playboy who is forever falling in love, with each scene centred on woman who is Anatol’s latest obsession.  He is like a latter-day Don Juan except that he sees his relations with women as love, not as deliberate seduction and names to add to his catalogue, and no aura of sin and retribution even enters into his thoughts or those around him.  He is a figure of fun because, despite all his talk of falling in love, he is in reality a narcissist.  He is so convinced of his irresistible charm and good looks that he is unable to perceive what actually happens around him. 

Max (Robert Persichini), Anatol’s best friend and confidant, is a psychologist who constantly takes down notes about his “friend” as he is talking.  Anatol is oblivious to the fact that Max seems to be more interested in Anatol as a curious case study than a friend.

The first scene announces the central theme that the following six will develop.  Anatol is in love with Hilda (Underhay), but is feeling grave doubts about whether she has been faithful to him.  Having just seen a demonstration of hypnosis, Anatol, encouraged by Max, hypnotizes Hilda and prepares to find out the truth.  Even though he has Hilda fully in his power, Anatol cannot bring himself to ask the question.  Even though he is temporizing all the objections he makes as to whether what Hilda says will be the truth are justifiable.  What is faithfulness?  Is it faithfulness in mind or in deed or does it need to be both?  Anatol is never faithful, so why does he demand it of the women he loves?  In the event he wakes Hilda out of her trance without ever posing the question yet pretends to Max that he has.  Thus, we see the cowardliness in Anatol beneath the bravado.  And, what is more important, he would rather believe the illusion that places him in a good light than find out the truth that might not. 

It is easy to see in Anatol, Schnitzler’s critique of men in particular and of mankind in general.  Though people repeatedly claim to want the truth what the really want is a truth that will confirm their own beliefs.It no wonder that Sigmund Freud, a friend of Schnitzler’s, so admired the play.

In his adaption Panych does not use Schnitzler’s titles for each scene but merely names each one after its central female character – Hilda, Gabriele, Bianca, Emily, Mimi, Elsa and Liona.  In the original the first scene is titled “Die Frage an das Schicksal” (“The Question of Fate”) which suggests a deeper meaning to the scene than merely “Hilda”.  The scene with Emily is originally “Denksteine” (“Memorial Stones”) and the one with Elsa is called “Agonie” (“Agony”).  Panych’s use of simply the women’s names many seem tidy but is also shows that he views the play as merely a succession of scenes.  Accordingly, he directs each on in exactly the same way without allowing Shara to vary his portrayal of Anatol even though his circumstance change completely.

What Panych’s production misses is any sense of progression in moving from one scene to the next.  Anatol’s self-delusion becomes the cause for his destruction.  In Scene 1 he is completely in control of the woman, Hilda, and the situation.  In the Scene 7, the woman, Liona is completely in control and has it in her power to ruin Anatol forever.  The turning point comes in Scene 5 “Abschiedsouper” (“Farewell Dinner”) in which Anatol has planned an elaborate dinner to say farewell to Mimi, since he has fallen out of love for her, while she uses it as a means of saying farewell to him because she has found someone new. 

A more penetrating production would be able to highlight Anatol’s downfall rather than suggest that each scene is merely a repetition of the last.  That view is Anatol’s view that denies that he changes and yet hates time for the changes it brings.  Anatol is a mass of contradictions that he refuses to acknowledge.  In Scene 3 he wants Max to store all his past love letters.  He wants to be free of his past but he can’t bear to have it destroyed.  Yet, in Scene 4 he demands that his fiancée Emily destroy every reminder of the past so that she will never have a reminder that she knew anyone before him. 

The superficiality of Panych’s view doesn’t allow Shara to develop his character as much as he could.  He has become expert at playing a boastful, uncomprehending dolt, like his Cloten in Cymbeline at Stratford last year, but we get nothing to suggest even minimally that Anatol feels a net closing around him.  Robert Persichini well plays Max as the wry observer of human folly, rather like the realist Colonel Pickering to the enthusiast Henry Higgins.  On opening night both actors seems rather under the weather which may have led to less vitality that one might wish in their performances.

Nicole Underhay, however, is an absolute joy as the seven women which she manages to distinguish quite clearly.  While Hilda may seem empty-headed, Gabriele shows real depth.  In her remarkable scene of help Anatol shop of a Christmas present, she makes subtext dominate spoken words in a masterful way so that we see how, as a married woman and excellent judge of character, she is struggling against the temptation to fall in love with Anatol.  Her Emily is justly outraged, her Mimi is joyfully vindictive and her Liona is clearly dangerous.  Its a fantastic sequence of characters that Underhay brings off with panache.

A fourth character in all the scenes is a largely silent man in service positions – valet, waiter, doorman – all played by Adam Paolozza.  Paolozza is such a fine physical comedian it was quite surprising that Panych allowed him to make so little use of his talents.

Ken MacDonald’s set looked immediately familiar.  Basically, it combines the At Nouveau decoration of his set for Soulpepper’s Parfumerie with the wall of filing cabinets, now a wall of square drawers, that he created for the Canadian Stage production of Terry Johnson’s Hysteria in 2000.  Charlotte Dean’s array of gorgeous costumes for Underhay are superb, each perfectly capturing the personality and individuality of the seven women.                                   

Underhay’s many fans will certainly want to see Anatol as will those anxious to see a high-profile production of an important through seldom-seen work.  If only Panych had shown more insight into the play than Anatol has into his life, this would be a play highly recommendable to all.  

              

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Mike Shara, Adam Paolozza, Nicole Underhay and Robert Persichini. ©2013 Cylla von Tiedemann.

For tickets, visit http://tarragontheatre.com.