The Blue Room

What is the main conflict in The Blue Room by David Hare?

Asked by
Last updated by Cat
1 Answers
Log in to answer

The Blue Room is based on Reigen, a series of vignettes written by Dr. Arthur Schnitzler in 1896. Reigen, German for "round dance," was set in Schnitzler's own fin de siecle Vienna and depicted a number of characters in a continuous chain of sexual liaisons, suggesting that the meaningless physical relationships they shared, as well as venereal diseases they picked up along the way, were passed along in a mechanical, dehumanizing chain. When the work was actually performed in Vienna in 1921, it was closed by police for its scandalous sexual content. Actors in a Berlin production the same year were taken to court on obscenity charges. The film version, La Ronde, created by Max Ophuls in 1950, lifted some sense of the taboo surrounding the story and replaced it with a wistful nostalgia and only minor titillation.