Week 5: Hail Aphrodite

Venus in Fur, written by David Ives, came to Toronto's Bluma Appel Theatre in 2013, where the whole run sold out. The show was then remounted twice over the next year and sold out again. I won't lie; I saw it twice.

Venus in Fur the play is loosely based on a novel of the same title written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. (Fun fact: Sacher-Masoch's name is the origin of the word "masochism", just as the Marquis de Sade gave his to "sadism" with books like the Hundred Days of Sodom and Justine. Hence, sado-masochism, and the beginnings of S&M as it is understood today.) The novel is about Severin, a young man who falls madly in love with a 17th-century dominatrix. The play reframes and modernizes the story, instead following a male playwright who has adapted Sacher-Masoch's novel and is looking for an actress to play Vanda, the female lead.

The play begins with Thomas, the playwright, talking to his fiancee on the phone, complaining that there is not a single actress who can handle playing Vanda. As he hangs up, a woman walks into the studio, claiming that her name is Vanda and she is here to audition for Venus in Fur. She is the last person Thomas had in mind when he started looking to cast a classical actress in his period play. But Vanda takes it upon herself to give Thomas a run for his money.

What follows is a plotline that walks right on the edge of reality. Thomas and Vanda read for the roles of Severin and (fictional) Vanda, but the line between their real world relationship and their in-character relationship gets increasingly blurry. It's a play about power, sex and feminism. The layers embedded in the text are complex: Thomas and Vanda play themselves, but they also take on other characters, switch roles, and comment on their actions and the actions of their characters as they are happening.


 

Part of the challenge of coding this text will have to do with the intended audience. If we choose to code for an actor who needs to use the script in rehearsal, our results will be vastly different from coding for an academic who wants to search the document for research purposes.