Dream Story

Like his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human sexuality. Schnitzler is probably most famous for La Ronde, a play too scandalous to publish or perform in his own lifetime but whose daisy-chain of couplings inspired both Max Ophuls’s classic film and David Hare’s modernised version, The Blue Room, which played to sell-out audiences in the West End and on Broadway. Dream Story is an equally erotic work, in which a married couple are first traumatised and then achieve a new depth of understanding by confessing to each other their sexual fantasies, dream-like adventures and might-have beens. Taking us on a guided tour of Vienna’s seedy cafes, red-light district, decadent villas, hospitals and morgue, Schnitzler brilliantly uncovers the violence and depravity lurking beneath the surface of civilised society. Dream Story is the inspiration for the film Eyes Wide Shut, co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael.