https://baxter.uct.ac.za/events/la-ronde
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I’ve been thinking a lot about tenderness lately. Is tenderness more than just kindness and gentleness? When does tenderness transform into succulence, transform into discomfort? When I walked into the Baxter Theatre to watch La Ronde, my hope at the time was just to enjoy some theatre about the realities and illusions of human sexuality. However, my decision later on was to think about this interpretation as a call to cultivate a spirit of tenderness in a world currently marked by several domestic and societal anxieties.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about tenderness lately. Is tenderness more than just kindness and gentleness? When does tenderness transform into succulence, transform into discomfort? When I walked into the Baxter Theatre to watch La Ronde, my hope at the time was just to enjoy some theatre about the realities and illusions of human sexuality. However, my decision later on was to think about this interpretation as a call to cultivate a spirit of tenderness in a world currently marked by several domestic and societal anxieties. To use Schnitzler’s text as a way to probe contemporary youth’s lovemaking and love-nurturing practices, proves that our desire for meaningful connection is an endless and timeless yearning. What I think Leila Henriques’s interpretation of La Ronde does, however, is highlight the comedy of Schnitzler and use that as a portal to reveal the layers of the characters’ deepest desires, instead of making angst and fear one-dimensional. This is accompanied by a cast who are exploring their characters with attention to the art of the flirt – slightly slapstick – and, maybe even more interestingly, the art of the hunch.
Reimagined in what feels like a nightclub but becomes a student apartment, a field and a dimly lit poetry realm later in the play, La Ronde warms up with the cast emerging in a hyperpop dance sequence. Bodies collide and synchronise into a suggestive yet playful routine. This, of course, takes liberties with the idea of the La Ronde – a dance performed in a ring, hands interlocked, used to symbolise community making, connection and the spirit of fervency. The dance is fleeting and opens up to our first scene, with the DJ (Tamzin Daniels) taking her place in the booth – a maker of ambience and a multiscient viewer, peeking into the lives of our characters. La Ronde is structured into 10 intimate scenes, with pairs of lovers who meet each other with different senses of familiarity. Each character appears twice in consecutive scenes up until the cycle closes – a chain of encounters connecting ideas of lust, intrigue and mistrust. It’s at this point that I will digress to think about some of the dynamics that the interpretation creates that are misleading at first glance.
La Ronde feels like the type of play which should be taken seriously. Take into consideration its very serious history of controversy for its contestation of morality and sexual freedoms. Leila Henriques, however, sees a layer of the text that sits in plain sight, and through her interpretation allows her collaborators and actors to explore the side of the text which is more humorous. At first, I found it quite insensitive, because sex is a serious thing, right? But, on reflection, I realise that this is something that the text not only invites, but tinkers with naturally.
“The Prostitute (Berenice Barbier) and the Soldier (Lyle October)” is the opening scene and gives us a taste of what’s to come. Barbier brings the character of the Prostitute to life by subverting the notion of sex as a transaction. Noting that “(she) only takes money from civilians, the military get it for free”, I think there is a lot to say about the Prostitute as an archetype opening the play up, introducing us to the rules of engagement, the divinity of pleasure, but also to how sex and intimacy are separate forces. What transpires is a see-saw of wit, encouragement – a proliferation until the climax, which is tastefully represented through a series of equally comedic and evocative tableaus – an action which, of course, gets the audience feeling quite blissful, and maybe a tad rowdy. This will be the exercise that each scene plays out for the rest of La Ronde, but each scene is covered with a different film, whether in jest, like in “The Maid (Nolufefe Ntshuntshe) and the Student (Aidan Scott)”, or in anger and deception, like “The Husband (Carlo Daniels) and the Little Them (Lyle October)”. It shows us how physical, romantic, sexual connection is deeply part of how we make sense of our world, how the search for fulfilment comprises sacrifice and abandon.
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It shows us how physical, romantic, sexual connection is deeply part of how we make sense of our world, how the search for fulfilment comprises sacrifice and abandon.
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What Henriques’s interpretation does well here, is highlight that within a world of labels and symbol making, contemporary life is trying to use these as points of departure, and not just as ways for us to restrict ourselves – a common question asked by us of “Who am I, truly, in a world where so much vocabulary exists for me?”. And, by extension, in some of the more serious scenes in the performance, it asks what we do when we are misled by these labels, when we are betrayed by notions or ideas that feel stable, that feel solid. In a rapidly changing society, moments of intimacy seem to suspend space and time, but with that comes a power play, a mortality, a trust fall. There is truly a lot more to say and analyse from what happens in this play, but I’m attempting not to enter the realm of the academy with this review.
This performance is marked by its comical top notes. And it really allows us as viewers to have a good laugh, and hopefully to have some healthy and good conversation about sex and intimacy. The performance of the ever-eager and zealous Stellies student Aidan Scott is really funny, because it feels innocent and true. Awethu Hleli, as the melodramatic and mystified Actress (not to ignore how she works the bob!), really brings to life how desire can surprise and scare us. October’s presentation of the Little Them shows him in a different light, challenging him to craft an exposed yet fearless queer body, and he does this with a sense of pride and gusto, just after earlier acting out the quite macho and assured Soldier. Daniels and Barbier are quite captivating in their scene as the Wife and the Husband, as they show some of the anxieties around marriage as a potential dead-end and question some of the antiquated ideas around matrimony. The moments when the cast is changing set or performing a dance sequence together are lots of fun, as they are provocative, yet don’t take themselves too seriously; and they keep the idea alive that we are watching them, but also that we are all connected in some way.
In some ways, I wish that some of the scenes were better paced. Due to the text, some scenes are longer than others. However, some longer scenes felt rushed and a bit orderless, or a bit too elongated. Sometimes the production forgets to stop and look at the more serious parts of the play; I wonder if that is because there is potential for these serious moments to undercut the comedic characteristics of the text, instead of complement them. And, at times, the play suffers from a shortage of subtleties in the choreography, physical direction and certain other aspects of some scenes. There was a moment in the scene between the Husband and the Little Them which could have proceeded to hypothesise what the queer body does when it responds in anger and retribution instead of shame. When I think about some of the nonverbal interaction, there is a lot of room to create bursts of perfume which could linger longer. However, the performance as a whole does not suffer because of it.
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If anything, this performance is lovely. It’s charged, straightforward and funny. In all, this production makes me think about the power of the hunch – the “what if?”, the excess, the decadent. How do we know what chemistry is and what synchronicity is?
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If anything, this performance is lovely. It’s charged, straightforward and funny. In all, this production makes me think about the power of the hunch – the “what if?”, the excess, the decadent. How do we know what chemistry is and what synchronicity is? What do our hunches reveal to us after we’ve received clarity and release? These are all questions that I think this iteration is exploring in a very fast-paced way, representing how little time contemporary society feels it has left, and representing the desperation we have, to find companionship that is meaningful. In some of the more serious moments of the play, it thinks about what it means to pick ourselves up in a world that sometimes doesn’t see the body of “the other” as something to witness, but rather something to possess. It thinks about why we sometimes retreat when we are met with tenderness, and that our softness is actually not weakness. It’s a great show, and I encourage you to go and watch it, and to make more astute comments than I have made about it.
And all of this, while the DJ watches from the outside in. Hmm.
La Ronde
Dates: 20 June - 12 July 2025
Baxter Theatre
Book here via Quicket.
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