There are many remedies for longing: marriage, sex, cynicism, discipline and death are just a few. And the strange wonder of Ferdinand Bruckner’s 1926 play, here given a dimly lit yet incandescent revival by Katie Mitchell, stems from its diagnosis of longing as the key to young adulthood.
Bruckner’s story revolves around a set of sexually comingled medical students at a boarding house in Vienna. It’s like a Neo-Expressionist This Life: they must work and sleep their way through finding their professional and sexual identities, only here it’s against the hopeless backdrop of a defeated German empire.
The chances for melodrama are rife. Lydia Wilson’s flighty aristocrat Desiree sees the bourgeois adult world as no place for free spirits: “Only childhood’s worth living,” she announces, pushing aside her bob. Laura Elphinstone’s Marie celebrates graduation by being dumped by her boyfriend, Leo Bill’s Petrell, a boyish poet who’s found someone else. And Geoffrey Streatfeild’s cruel Freder sleeps with the servant, Sian Clifford’s Lucy, then leads her into prostitution.
See the full article from “Times Online”
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