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FRÄULEIN ELSE Volkstheater - Wien Sat 18.Oct 2025 19:30 labels.sale_over replace me !"But I've never been so sensible."
Young Else T., daughter of a good family, is spending the summer in an upscale spa town in Trentino. She whiles away the time playing tennis, hiking in the mountains, and enjoying fine dinners – until an express letter from Vienna changes everything. Her mother writes, pleading. Else should, no, must, rehabilitate her father's ailing finances. After another stock market blunder, he needs 30,000 guilders, and quickly, or he faces social disrespect – or even imprisonment.
Else is now supposed to ask a wealthy friend of the family for the money: the art dealer Dorsday. He, considerably older than Else, is vacationing at the same spa hotel and constantly compliments her. She finds him abhorrent, but what good does it do? The family's good reputation must be preserved. Dorsday, however, recognizes the hopelessness of Else's situation – and uses it for a sinister game: He will only transfer the debt if he is allowed to view Else naked for a quarter of an hour...
First published in 1924, Arthur Schnitzler's novella FRÄULEIN ELSE remains, even a century later, a gripping and multifaceted analysis of the abuse of power, double standards, and the commodification of female bodies – consistently written as a stream of thought from Else's inner perspective.
For many years, actress Julia Riedler and director Leonie Böhm have harbored the idea of bringing this legendary stream of consciousness to the stage in a joint theater piece – and reinterpreting it for the here and now. Because that is precisely what is central to Leonie Böhm's work: The canonical texts serve as an opportunity to re-examine them and to inscribe one's own needs and ideas into them. Through humor, playfulness, and subtlety, novel and empowering interpretations emerge.
Now, shortly after the novella's 100th anniversary, this heartfelt project is coming to the Volkstheater stage as a solo for Julia Riedler – in Leonie Böhm's first Viennese directorial venture.
(Source: volkstheater.at)
