A group of middle-aged professors jostles for power in a private teaching hospital in Vienna. Your heart sinks. But, then, suddenly - extraordinarily for 1912 - the plot pivots. A young woman dying after a botched abortion, and high on camphor, genuinely believes she will recover.
Arguing it would be cruel to disillusion her, her doctor prevents a Catholic priest from performing the last rites. The only problem: Professor Bernhardi is Jewish. A witch hunt ensues. He is tried and imprisoned.
Samuel Adamson's spiky new version of a 'lost' play by Arthur Schnitzler, best known for inspiring Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, is uncannily prescient about the growth of anti-semitism in turn-of-the-century Europe. Even though Bernhardi founded a private hospital, and counts royalty as friends, his downfall is swift.
And yet what is so interesting about the play is that it doesn't plunge helter-skelter into tragedy. In prison, Bernhardi finds himself an unlikely cause celebre, feted by the tabloids (where have we heard that one before?). A retrial is demanded, much to his horror: he just wants to go back to work.
Dumbfounded Theatre is a young company devoted to the rediscovery of neglected work by great European writers. The Last Waltz Season consists of a trio of German and Austrian works, co-produced with Oxford Stage Company (Arcola is showing a different play each night). The delight of Professor Bernhardi is that a group of great ensemble actors gets the chance to flex their muscles. Christopher Godwin excels as Bernhardi, but he is matched by Jake Harders as the feisty young priest.
The scene where they meet to discuss their religious differences is almost a love scene. Fittingly for a play about intransigence, nothing is quite what it seems.
