Round Dance

The playwright Arthur Schnitzler is best known as the chronicler of fin de siècle Viennese decadence. Round Dance, written in the late 1890s, exposes sexual life in Vienna with such witty frankness that it could not be staged until after the First World War, when it provoked a riot in the theatre and a prosecution for indecency. The other plays in this collection explore love, sexuality, and death in various guises, always with a sharp, non-judgemental awareness of the complexity and mystery of the psyche. Acquainted with Freud and his circle, Schnitzler probes beneath the surface of his characters to uncover emotions they barely understand. And in the tragicomedyProfessor Bernhardi, Schnitzler addresses the growing anti-Semitism of the period.