Take a closer look at the world of FRAULEIN ELSE.
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SYNOPSIS

DIRECTOR'S NOTE: FROM LUCY SMITH CONROY

ARTHUR SCHNITZLER AND FIN-DE-SIECLE VIENNA

AN INTERVIEW WITH WHITNEY SNEED

THE DESIGN PROCESS: NOTES FROM SCENIC DESIGNER, MICHAEL BROWN

SYNOPSIS

The setting: A spa near the foot of Northern Italy's Cimone Mountain, 1912.

As the play begins, Fräulein Else is leaving a tennis match on the court of the beautiful Hotel Fratazza, a popular vacation spot in the Northern Italian Alps. The tennis match was between her cousin, Paul, and his female friend, Frau Cissy Mohr. Else passes Herr von Dorsday, an older friend of the family vacationing at the hotel. Returning to the hotel to prepare for dinner, she is given a letter by the hotel porter from her mother, which she decides to read in her room while she is preparing for dinner. As Else dresses for dinner, her mother appears reciting the words of the letter. In the letter, her mother makes a few pleasantries: she hopes Else is having a relaxing vacation, shares a laugh over Else's descriptions of the other guests... at which point she proceeds to inform Else that a family friend, Dr. Fiala, is owed a considerable amount of money: debts Else's father has acquired yet again, a fact which does not surprise Else in the slightest.

Her mother then suggests that she inquire of Herr von Dorsday, and urge him to send the money in full (30,000 Guldens - a considerable sum), along to Dr. Fiala. Irritated at the request, she finally decides that for the sake of her parents she will ask Dorsday for the money. A moment later in the hotel courtyard she discovers Dorsday, and after some small talk reveals to him the situation. He's sympathetic to her predicament while being oddly flirtatious. He decides to relinquish the money... with one condition: in private, she must stand naked in front of him for a quarter of an hour. Else reviles at the suggestion and without a hint of agreement either way, leaves Dorsday and goes for a walk alone with her thoughts.

Upon returning, she is questioned by her cousin Paul wondering why she wasn't at dinner. After an excuse that she was absent because of a headache, Else once again returns to her room and dresses for the rendezvous with Dorsday, deciding to wear only her long coat and shoes -- nothing more. She also receives a telegram, special delivery, from her mother stating that the amount is now 50,000 Guldens. Unsure of how the events of the evening might unfold, she prepares a glass of water with an overdose of sedative which she places on her bedside table. Walking down the hotel hallway to Dorsday's room and, upon finding it empty, she leaves a note regarding the inflated amount.

Wandering through the hotel in search of Dorsday, Else finds him at a small recital for some guests of the hotel. She listens for a moment, attempts to catch Dorsday's attention, fails, then opens her coat wide to reveal her naked body in front of the entire recital audience. The piano music stops, she faints, and is carried back to her room by Paul and the hotel porter. Paul and Cissy fuss over the incident and Else's bizarre actions -- which Else can hear, even in her collapsed state.

Dorsday enters beside himself then leaves in guilt, perhaps to send the money to Dr. Fiala. Paul and Cissy step away from Else's bedside for a moment, at which point Else decides to drink the sedative she had prepared earlier... while replacing the glass she causes it to fall to the floor, which gets Paul and Cissy's attention. As she slips away we hear the voices of Paul and Cissy trying to wake Else.

DIRECTOR'S NOTE: FROM LUCY SMITH CONROY

It is late summer and Else is on holiday. She admits her life is one long series of vacations and rattles off the names of some of the fabulous European resorts she has visited: Menton, San Martino, Marienlyst, Merano -- these are the playgrounds of the upper reaches of European society and her presence there should make her the envy of any young Viennese woman. Yet in the midst of all this extravagance, Else is unsettled. Contrary to outward appearances, she is not leading a care-free life. There is the problem of money and family debt, her strained relationship with her father, and her burgeoning, though repressed, sexual desire. And now there's the matter of a special delivery letter on its way from her mother in Vienna. What news will it bring?

Though Schnitzler wrote Fräulein Else in 1924, several of his biographers and critics contend that everything he wrote took place before August 1, 1914, the day that marked the beginning of World War I. And while the events of Fräulein Else occur in the mountains of Northern Italy, Schnitzler's stories, like Schnitzler himself, never strayed far from Vienna. Fin-de-siécle Vienna was home to some of the most important figures of the early twentieth-century. Freud, Klimt, Wittgenstein, Schoenberg, Herzl, Schiele and Hitler are just some of the men who inhabited Vienna during Schnitzler's lifetime.

In the years leading up to World War I, Schnitzler saw the continued rise of the middle class and had the great fortune to live at a time and in a place where artists and thinkers were exalted members of society. He also witnessed the gradual decline of the Hapsburg dynasty and an insurgence of anti-Semitism in his own country. And while the women's emancipation movement was picking up speed in other parts of Western Europe, Hapsburg Austria lagged behind.

Given the transitional time in which Schnitzler lived, Else's crisis and instability may be read as a reflection of the world she inhabited. While this is a valid interpretation of our play, using Fräulein Else as a vehicle for resurrecting the Austria of 1912 prevents its true relevance from shining through. What makes this a classic text is Schnitzler's unflinching examination of an individual in crisis. Freud himself stood in awe of Schnitzler's ability to intuit things about the human psyche that psychiatry would pinpoint years later.

Schnitzler once said: "I feel that it is my job to create human beings; I have nothing to prove except how varied the world is… (In my stories), every character is compelled to reveal his or her most intimate being." In 2004 this play is important because of its focus on the individual spirit. It taps into our desire to understand the choices and motivations of other people. It draws us into the needs, fears and longings of another human being and increases our capacity for empathy.

ARTHUR SCHNITZLER AND FIN-DE-SIECLE VIENNA

As America was in the throes of Reconstruction after the Civil War, modern Europe was trying to come to terms with the dissolution of their largest ruling empire -- the Habsburg Empire -- while attempting to remain at the forefront of art and literature as they had been for centuries. The arts and sciences were taking a new internalized view of humanity with the publishing of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 and Freud's Interpretation of Dreams in 1900.

During this time of unrest it was not uncommon for persons of middle and upper class society to leave comfortable, bureaucratic positions in favor of artistic pursuits, perhaps in attempts to better examine or express their dissatisfaction with the current political climate. Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstract art, left a career as a lawyer to become a painter upon seeing indescribable colors coming from a haystack in a field he happened to pass by one day. Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream (1896), a symbol of raw psychological anguish, portrayed the theme of the times for the new "modern" European.

Viennese Arthur Schnitzler all but abandoned his medical career in order to more fully explore the human psyche in society at large through his prose and plays. His play, Der Reigen (1903), so shocked audiences that a public trial was called for, and the actors were charged with “performing obscene acts.” Obviously, there was no better place to strike the nerve of the previously unexamined depths of humanity than in fin-de-siécle Vienna.

In turn of the century Vienna, painters such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele were breaking tradition through harsh and at times explicit depictions of the human form and human sexuality. Critics lashed out at the works of avant-garde composers Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton von Webern; riots broke out at their first concert together in 1913. Perhaps these dark representations served as a precursor for what was to come in Vienna. As theatre critic Martin Esslin commented, "It is the juxtaposition of an intellectual elite, universally educated, closely knit, with all the stimulus to lively debate on the one hand, and the feeling of impending doom on the other, which seems to provide the explanation why so much of the seminal thought of our century originated in Vienna..."

The collapse of the Habsburg Empire, combined with the threat of World War I, forced artists throughout Europe to reject tradition and push society into a realization of modern thought. Those at the forefront of the arts and sciences were exploring the deeper, more consequential issues they were experiencing in their daily lives (and nightly bedroom escapades), and how those issues manifested themselves within Austrian society as a whole. No two men made more of an impact on the coming century than Sigmund Freud and Arthur Schnitzler.

Freud recognized the influence of human sexuality in people's lives, the experiences and expectations implied for both men and women. His work would influence not only Viennese thought, but the structure of modern philosophy for decades to come. As an active member of the thriving intellectual café culture, Schnitzler became an acute analyst of the city's disquietude. One of the great intellectual and artistic personalities at the turn of the century, Schnitzler came closest in his writings to reflecting the social life of the city by dramatizing the individual within a disintegrating society.

"Your determinism as well as your skepticism - what people call pessimism - your preoccupation with the truths of the unconscious and the instinctual drives in man, your dissection of the cultural conventions of our society, the dwelling of your thoughts on the polarity of love and death; all this moves me with an uncanny feeling of familiarity. Whenever I am absorbed in one of your beautiful creations I invariably seem to find beneath their poetic surface the very suppositions, interests, and conclusions that are also mine...I have formed the impression that you know through intuition...everything that I have discovered by laborious work on other people." -Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Arthur Schnitzler

-Ben Calvert, Production Dramaturg

AN INTERVIEW WITH WHITNEY SNEED

1. As a performer, what do you find most exciting and compelling about Fräulein Else?

It is a unique play that focuses on the subtext of a very imaginative young woman who is somewhat lost, confused, insecure and pressed to make the biggest decision of her life. I have always been interested in human behavior and that which compels us to act on our decisions. Most of the work I have done has been focused on relationships, which typically addresses the issues of what does this character want and how is she going to get it from the other characters in the play.

Fräulein Else seems to focus more on the relationship with oneself. Else is struggling to balance her dream world with the reality that surrounds her while at the same time discovering her sexuality, morals, and true emotions. This chaos within a young mind and the decision she must make to save her father really interests me; it's a great challenge and something that I've never done before.

2. Fräulein Else is a psychological drama. What do you think it takes for an actor to create this role? How do you prepare for a play like this? What part of yourself or experience in life -- if any -- do you bring to the role?

In preparation, I am simply trying to figure out Else's strengths, weaknesses, desires and needs and compare those to my own life experience. Instead of judging her, I want to understand the reasons for her behavior and decisions. I'm afraid to prepare too much before I get on my feet with the other actors; I've found that the majority of the magic happens in the rehearsal room and not at home in my head.

3. For a period of time you left acting and joined a band. What made you try the music industry and what has brought you back to the theatre?

After I graduated from DePaul, I needed to take a little break from the city. A guy with whom I had recorded music in the past was looking for a new lead singer and gave me a call out of the blue; it was perfect timing. I left the city, joined the band, and wrote and recorded music for two years. I was really enjoying myself and loved being near my family again. However, I missed acting and gigging in a band wasn't giving me that same fulfillment so I moved back to Chicago. I do miss song writing and performing, but I find time to play to placate the music twitch.

4. Fräulein Else was written in the early part of the 20th century and some people might think it is dated in terms of its social commentary on women and the role of women at the time. What do you think is timely and relevant for today's audiences?

Women today still struggle with being treated as sexual objects -- maybe even more so than in the past. In order to save her father, Else must sacrifice herself by allowing her virgin body to be seen by a man who is manipulating the situation for his own sexual gratification. It represents an opportunistic man taking advantage of a young woman who is excited by the realization of her own sexuality. This is certainly a relevant issue today regardless of the socio-political setting of the play.

THE DESIGN PROCESS: NOTES FROM SCENIC DESIGNER, MICHAEL BROWN

Visual Artist Lionel Feininger's wood block prints and paintings inspired the Set Design for Fräulein Else. I've been seeking the 'line' quality of the space, and I keep going back to Lionel Feininger's work. Here are images which have an intriguing journey/transformation in my mind.

I really like all the wood-block prints -- and it was common among many contemporaries of his -- Kirchner, Schiele, etc. There is something so bold and brash, raw and elemental about them. Among the first 4, there is a distinct progression in degree of detail and clarity. My first instincts inspired by the Feininger wood block prints are revolving around a topographic, severely compound, harshly raked, multi-leveled, stage deck. I'm developing slopes down toward the audience and creating a wrap-around cliff-like-edge on the upstage side -- peering out towards a 'sky' of sorts. It feels like a huge skate, or slate, or mountainside ledge, teetering off balance.

Michelle Habeck [Lighting Designer] and I discussed options in terms of shadow play, silhouettes, the translucency of materials, the vividly architectural & sculptural qualities of light, etc. I think there's great growth in Else's journey - and having it all set amidst expressionism, futurism, and modernism lends well for us to play with abstracted space and light.

To achieve the visual journey I outlined in my notes above, I'm toying with the idea of this stage deck articulated with very geometric, angular graphic line work -- similar to the woodblock prints. If you imagine the surface of a stage articulated by those harsh graphic lines, take it one step further and picture those lines creating dozes of polygon-shaped doors, hatches, or windows which could open up, or rather, fall inside the stage surface. Add to that the idea of these 'hatches' set behind panels of frosted plexi-glass (frozen glass? ice? etc.), my idea is that from the wood-block-print quality in the beginning, emerges the quality of that final painting of Feininger's, the exploded, prismatic, glowing, sunburst image.

Needless to say, there remains a lot of exploration here, which Lucy and I are pushing ahead with. Priority number one is to create an evocative journey of the space -- rather than slam the audience with something blunt and heavy handed. We may discover that we have more visually evocative metaphors by lighting selective panels from above, in a manner different than before. Or perhaps, these 'hatches' only 'fall' a few inches, revealing cracks and crevasses in the surface through which light can pour. For Lucy and I, what is most important is to explore all of the possibilities.