STAGE REVIEW : Slap at Sex in Vienna Generates Little Heat

In the course of the 10 scenes of Arthur Schnitzler’s “La Ronde,” we meet 10 couples from all strata of society. They seduce and submit to each other, and then move on to other partners in a hollow dance of immediate gratification. Schnitzler’s reported aim was to castigate the Viennese society of his time (1903) for its degradation of love from a spiritual passion to an animal appetite.

At Cal State Fullerton, there is plenty of talk about sex and a good deal of perfunctory disrobing, but no real sexual heat is generated. The characters are reduced to an interchangeable collection of shallow hedonists.

Christine Mendivil does bring a notable maturity to her role as the Young Wife, and a genuine sense of character. Her scene with Darrold Strubbe as the Husband is the high point of the production. And Melinda Suzanne Riemer as the Maid seemed to yearn for something more from the Soldier (Kevin Bossenmeyer) than a roll in the grass. That yearning evaporated in the following scene, however, when she flounced merrily into dalliance with the Young Man (Charles Gallagher).

The rest of the production plays like a series of blackout skits revolving around low-rent seduction jokes. The sex acts within each scene, so obscene and objectionable to Schnitzler’s contemporaries, are rendered here as loud, suggestive noises and one or two comic outbursts in a blackout. A short blackout. These Viennese are not only shallow, but speedy.

What they are not is dangerous. The evils that Schnitzler wrote to reprove seem toothless here. In the age of AIDS, only the foolhardy would indulge their sex drives so recklessly. But woe betide us if we can watch these characters lust and pose and lie, and envy them the simplicity of their empty lives.

The set, by Todd Muffatti and Rahnee Chung, is handsome, with graceful lines and serviceable double turntables. The flats are textured with squiggles and patterns that look like patches of crushed velvet, flocked wallpaper, tassels and tapestries mired in a gray mud. There’s a hint of grandeur hidden and besmirched. It doesn’t help, though, that the scene-change music, featuring an accordion and guitar arrangement perfect for a gondola ride, is not at all evocative of turn-of-the-century Vienna.

‘LA RONDE’

A Cal State Fullerton production of the play by Arthur Schnitzler, translated by Leon Gilbert. Directed by Jerry Pickering. With Julie M. L. Tucek, Kevin Bossenmeyer, Leon Gilbert, Sylvia Biller, Melinda Suzanne Riemer, Charles Gallagher, Christine Mendivil, Darrold Strubbe, Lorilyne Lee Plate, Jamison Jones, Robert W. Gore. Set by Todd Muffatti and Rahnee Chung. Lighting by Bob C. Mumm. Sound by David Ramos. Makeup and hair by Gary Christensen. Plays Thursday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Little Theatre, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Tickets: $6 to $7. Information: (714) 773-3371.