Arthur Schnitzler's notorious 1900 play consists of ten dialogues, each linking to the next through shared characters. A soldier meets a prostitute by the Augartenbrücke; she later meets a poet; he meets a naive young country girl; she meets her employer; and so the chain continues, climbing from guttersnipes to aristocrats until it circles back to where it began. In each scene, two people negotiate desire through flirtation and illusion, and Schnitzler strips away the pretense to reveal the transaction beneath. The dialogue is dry, exacting, and psychologically vicious: every character believes they're experiencing something genuine while simultaneously performing for their partner. First privately printed and banned, then suppressed for two decades, Reigen finally premiered in Berlin in 1920 to riots and an obscenity trial. What scandalized Vienna was not merely sexuality but Schnitzler's revelation that romance is a con every class plays on every other. The circular structure suggests a world where everyone is both user and used, where the waltz of seduction never stops because no one ever truly connects.
