Known mainly for his oft-adapted work La Ronde (or Reigen), FAR AND WIDE (Das weite Land) introduced New York audiences to European playwright Arthur Schnitzler as they had never seen him before. FAR AND WIDE is a complex examination of love and sex among the decadent upper classes of early twentieth century Vienna. It opened simultaneously in nine European cities in 1911 but was never seen in New York until Jonathan Bank’s adaptation premiered at the Mint in 2003.
“The acute psychological insights never falter and make this a sustained drama for head and heart,”1hailed Backstage. Donald Lyons observed in the New York Post, “Adaptor/director Jonathan Bank has staged a loving, moving version of this undiscovered masterpiece.”2 In New York Magazine, John Simon praised the Mint’s “estimable mounting” and declared “Das weite Land is one of the twentieth century’s greatest plays.”3
Demand for the production was so great it was re-mounted for an additional ten-week run. The extension was the first show in the third floor space on West 43rd Street, playing there while another long-running hit, THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW continued its own extension in our original fifth floor theater.
Arthur Schnitzler (Playwright 1862-1931) was one of the most famous of all of the great personalities in Vienna at the turn of the last century. A prolific author, Schnitzler wrote more than twenty prose works including stories, novellas and novels in addition to over twenty-five plays. From before 1900 until 1925, Schnitzler was more talked about, and his plays were more performed on the stages of Germany and Austria than any other writer. Schnitzler was both a Jew and a critic of the Austrian Monarchy, contributing to the censorship of his work in his lifetime, and by the Nazi’s after his death. His work ultimately suffered the same fate as the Viennese culture that he was describing and vanished into obscurity after Word War I. His best-known play today is probably Reigen a.k.a. La Ronde. This work was the basis for The Blue Room by David Hare, as well as the recently released film Love in the Time of Money. Audiences may also be familiar with Anatol, an early work (1893) consisting of seven scenes variously controversial, censored or banned for immorality. Neither of these plays accurately represents the breadth or depth of Schnitzler’s genius; what Benedict Nightingale describes as his “inquisitive, complex, formidably moral intelligence.”
ANDREW C. WISELY
Special Guest Speaker Andrew C. Wisely, author of Arthur Schnitzler and the Discourse of Honor and Dueling as well as Twentieth-Century Criticism of Arthur Schnitzler.
JONATHAN BANK AND PETER SANDER
- Adapter/Director Jonathan Bank is joined by Professor Peter Sander, Translation Advisor to discuss the process of adapting Schnitzler’s play into English.
LEO CAREY
Leo Carey from The New Yorker magazine discusses Schnitzler’s work.
JONATHAN BANK, JOHN SIMON, ANDREW WISELY, AND DR. FRANK HENTSCHKER
Adaptor/director Jonathan Bank, John Simon (previous drama critic, New York Magazine), Schnitzler expert Andrew Wisely (author of Twentieth Century Criticism of Arthur Schnitzler), and Dr. Frank Hentschker from the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, C.U.N.Y. lead a special evening of conversation on the life and work of Schnitzler, complete with an excerpt from the 1987 film adaptation of Das weite Land by Luc Bondy and a dramatic reading of Schnitzler’s pioneering short story “Lieutenant Gustl.”
