La Ronde: January 30 thru February 1
La Ronde – An “Intimate” Play About Seduction: January 30 thru February 1. 8:00pm Tickets: $16.00 / $12.00 students/arts workers/seniors/unwaged. The McMaster Thespian Company turns up the heat with Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler’s best-
known drama, LA RONDE in a new stage adaptation by local playwright and director Brian Morton (recipient of the 2013 City of Hamilton Arts Award for Theatre). Provocative, stylish, and erotic, LA RONDE follows a chain of amorous couplings across turn-of-the-century Vienna. Exchanging one lover for another, ten actors take on diverse characters in sexy duets that explore the passions, deceptions and disconnections of modern love. Written in 1897, each scene centres around one pair of lovers, depicting their sexual encounter and a brief conversation with characters changing partners ending with a count and the prostitute from the first scene.
LA RONDE features a cast of ten actors which includes Rebecca Lamarche, Gabriel Pinto, Luis Arrojo, Jordan Hallin-Williamson, Erin Dykstra, Sage Hyden, Megan Vukelic, Nicole McDermott, Katie Baldwin, and Matt Breton. The play will be stage managed by Sydney Stonier with Kayla Michelle Mazepa as Producer.
The McMaster Thespian Company is non-profit theatre organization which specializes in developing and performing classical plays, including but not limited to scripts from Grecian, Elizabethan and Victorian eras. MTC provides opportunities for students who are interested in performing, technical theatre, and production. This is the company’s eleventh season.
LA RONDE contains subject matter of a sexual nature – audience discretion is advised.
The production is Brian Morton’s first directorial venture for The McMaster Thespian Company. His work as a director includes How Could You Mrs. Dick? and Time and The Conways, Fair Liberty’s Call and The Suicide for Dundas Little Theatre. Morton’s own stage plays include his adaptation of Sylvia Fraser’s My Father’s House.
Arthur Schnitzler, born in Vienna in 1862, was a celebrated often controversial Austrian doctor, playwright, novelist and critic whose works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality, as well as their strong stand against anti-Semitism. LA RONDE is among Schnitzler’s best-known dramas and caused one of the greatest scandals in the history of the German theatre & provoked anti-Semitic riots in Berlin. The author banned any performances of the play in Europe until after his death and LA RONDE was not performed again until 1981.
