As the current production of Soulpepper's La Ronde showed, times change, but life experiences do not. The company managed to create a fine, but not great, production of the Austrian writer's once controversial play. It revealed that contemporary life finds somewhat of an echo in his observations even if they were made 104 years ago in a different society. This, of course, marks him a good playwright. But, one cannot help feel that he had a rather cynical view of life, or at least of male-female relationships. He really offered nothing redeeming of his own time, nor did Canadian playwright, Jason Sherman, of our time in his updated version based on the translation from the German by Michael Darroch.

This roundelay—not in the musical sense, but in one of dialogue—is a cycle of 10 two-person scenes that are connected by one character in each scene moving on into the next to form a circle. It is also held together by a theme of mostly illicit sex. These scenes are further bound together by a Musician. In the Soulpepper production it is the saxophonist/composer Colleen Allen, whose jazz compositions place the action in the 20^th century, but leave the time frame open.

Sherman created a Canadian setting. Hence a Politician, who in the original is a duke, is now a senator, and a character known as the Soldier in the original becomes the Athlete since we Canadians generally do not see soldiers on our streets. Yet, one does wonder why it was necessary to change the play to our time and place, even if it seems to make sense on the surface. Surely, it would have been just as effective to have left it in the Viennese setting at the turn of the 19th century. Toronto theater audiences are not that ignorant that they couldn't have made the transition in time and place, and still observe what is relevant to our own time.

While German director Herbert Olschok gave vivid shape to this new La Ronde, he failed to bring to it the tempo that was needed to create the movement implied by the word Reigen. He took three hours to tell us what could have been said in two. One also wondered why Olschuk chose to have the Athlete smoke so much while he was supposedly in training, although we don't learn what kind of athlete he is supposed to be. Had he been a soldier, the uniform would have told us. To this reviewer, this lack of identification implies a failure on not only the director's part, but also that of playwright, Sherman.

Olschok was assisted in creating this play by fellow countryman, costume designer Joachim Herzog, and by Canadian set designer Astrid Janson. Although the costumes were generally nondescript enough to place them into any part of the 20th century post WWI, and while some of the dresses had the required sex-appeal, they sometimes displayed a far too German sensibility. The Maid's broadly striped and frilly, fussy dress doesn't match our idea of such an individual. The Politician/Senator, attired in a black blazer and trousers of rather glaring, small, black-and-white checks, topped by a loud vest, simply doesn't conform to our perception of either a politician or a businessman on this side of the ocean.

Janson's set picks up quite ingeniously on the idea of the circular movement of the play. As each scene changes, the slabs that form buildings and rooms are moved by the actors, whose scenes have come and gone and are, therefore, out of the play. Thus, first one actor, then two, then three, etc. etc. move these high slabs to fit the occasion by just pushing them around until the setting for the new scene becomes visible.

The 10 actors, who form the inter-linking chain, generally capture the mood and tone of the play with the perception that one is used to from a Soulpepper production. The characters they portray are mostly highly unlikable, yet one can accept them because the actors respond in a way that brings out the humor as well as the tragic, even brutal moments in La Ronde. There was one bonus. Olschok opted to let the erotic rather than the explicitly sexual rule the scenes, for which we thank him. What transpires is mostly, but not always, left to the imagination. There was, however, a certain repetitiveness in his direction that after a while became wearing. Just one example: the women, invariably, were shown with their mouths opening up into a round O at a scene's point of climax, whether it was a happy or unhappy encounter. Once, twice maybe, but then it lost its effect and just created a sense of stylistic boredom.

Let me warn you. This translation of the play is not for the squeamish. Now and then the language drops not just into the gutter, but into the sewer. And while there is no getting away from the sexual acts that are stylistically enacted, Olschok has mercifully banned nudity from the stage.

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