Flirtation - Off-Broadway: Plays Reviewed by Victor Gluck
Possibly Arthur Schnitzler's most famous play after La Ronde and Antol, the fin-de-si�cle Flirtation (Liebelei) is a love story and a tragedy, as well as an indictment of Imperial Viennese society. Although highly admired in Europe where it has had two major film versions, it is rarely performed in the United States. Revived as part of Marvell Rep's winter repertory project, "Desire & Delusion: 3 Plays about Sex, Fate, Love & Honor" artistic director Lenny Leibowitz has given it an elegant, graceful and lovely production...
... Rita Harvey makes a great deal out of her role as Christine's landlady, gossipy and malicious in a very artful manner...
One of the great European playwrights and the leading interpreter of Austrian culture before the wars, Arthur Schnitzler, with his subtle understanding of the ways of the human heart pre-Freud, deserves to be seen on our stages more often. Flirtation represents a moral tale which does not allow its message to overpower its simple story. Lenny Leibowitz�s revival for Marvell Rep is always nimble, always tasteful, allowing the story to take center stage...