This is an 1897 play, initially circulated among friends, it was performed publicly after two decades, arousing strong reactions. Schnitzler was personally attacked as a Jewish pornographer and the episode came to be known as the Reigen scandal.

The play scrutinizes the sexual morals and class ideology of its day, through a series of encounters between pairs of characters, shown before and after the act of sex. By choosing characters across all levels of society, the play is also a social comment on how sexual contact overcomes boundaries of class.

Both the German Reigen and the French Ronde mean Round dance; like the English nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o' Roses, other European languages also have versions ending in all fall down. This is taken to relate to one of the controversial themes of the play - the transmission of syphilis across different layers of society.

The play takes place in Vienna in the 1890s and consists of ten love scenes between pairs of people. There are ten characters, each playing in two adjacent scenes (counting the last as adjacent to the first). The play starts with The Whore and The Soldier, followed by the Soldier and The Parlor Maid, and so on in this fashion until making full circle with The Whore back in the first scene

The Cast.

Arthur Schnitzler (The Playwright) – Gordon Cummings

Olga (His Wife) – Alison Howells

The Prostitute – Jennifer Scott-Reid

The Soldier – James Bentley

The Parlour Maid – Sue Clatworthy

The Young Man – Tim Middleton

The Young Wife – Issy O'Beirne

The Husband – Edward Oliver

The Coquette – Charlotte Tedman

The Poet – Keith Nuttall

The Actress – Carole Tedman

The Count – Brian Carter

Director – Trevor Osbourn