‘La Ronde’ Full of Pointless Encounters

Arthur Schnitzler’s “La Ronde” can be a trenchant commentary on Viennese society, or just a piece of forgettable fluff. Unfortunately, it’s the latter at Theatre 40, in a production that falls short of this company’s usually high standards of craftsmanship.

Schnitzler’s romp paints a portrait of 1920 Vienna in 10 interconnected two-person scenes, each one a tryst. Most of the lovers appear more than once, with different partners: The married woman whom we first meet with her lover shows up later with her husband, the husband appears still later with a sweet young thing, and so it goes.

Director Anita Khanzadian’s pedestrian staging aims for minimalist realism with a few cutesy fillips. A gong sounds and the lights go to black, for instance, when each pair has sex. But there’s no overarching idea here to elevate Schnitzler’s play into the critique it strains to be, and so the sum total of the couplings remains as pointless as the casual encounters themselves. What’s more, the pace is plodding--the antithesis of the period it’s supposed to evoke--and several of these actors have looked much sharper in other Theatre 40 shows.

* “La Ronde,” Theatre 40, Beverly Hills High Campus, 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Dec. 19. $17-$14. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes.