THE GAME OF LOVE Music by Jacques Offenbach, musical arrangements and additional music by Nancy Ford, book and lyrics by Tom Jones. Based on The Last Affairs of Anatol by Arthur Schnitzler. First presented 15 June, 1965 - No Broadway or West End presentation. SYNOPSIS Late 19th Century Vienna, a waltz, a kiss, a sigh - Tom Jones and Nancy Ford have wedded Offenbach and original music to the wise and witty Anatol plays by Arthur Schnitzler and have created a confection as list a a Viennese pastry. Anatol, a Viennese man about town, celebrates his life's passion - women - as he rendezvous with five special loves on a journey of self-discovery. Anatol is a handsome and experienced late 19th-century Viennese man about town with a fondness for everything female. With the assistance of his wily friend (and our narrator) Max, Anatol’s merry rendezvous with five very special women are recounted before our delighted eyes as our hero discovers love is indeed a game with amusing, bemusing rules. Story The play begins on an almost bare stage, save for a few visual reminders of turn of the century Vienna evoked both scenically and by our narrator, Max, as he steps out of the darkness describing a romantic world and time gone by. He also introduces us to his good friend Anatol, “our hero, … like the town, gallant and debonair.” Anatol admits to being a hopelessly romantic. His first lady love is Cora, a woman older than Anatol, more experienced and self-assured, who he suspects is cheating on him because Anatol says, “No woman involved in a love affair has a sick aunt!” He plots with Max to utilise some recently acquired lessons in hypnosis to get her to admit her faithlessness. Cora willingly agrees to be hypnotized and then she claims to be completely under his spell and willing to answer any question he asks. Max and Anatol debate how to frame the question properly which will force Cora to reveal whether or not she has been true to Anatol, but every suggestion Max makes Anatol rejects, leading Max to protest that Anatol is afraid and unwilling to learn the truth. Anatol wakes his lady love with passionate kisses without ever asking her directly if she has cheated on him, because “Is it a sham, who is the tiger, and who is the lamb?” They embrace as the lights fade. The lights now come up on Sacha’s Restaurant, the most elegant in Vienna, where two music hall entertainers, Fritz and Annie, entertain the guests with a light hearted song and dance routine which refutes English, French and Italian music for the good old oompah-pah of Bavaria. Max explains to the audience that Sacha’s was the restaurant for the “elegant, rich and gay” of Vienna and a place for “the playboy to play.” Anatol and three waiters are in a private dining room, where Anatol is confiding to them that this evening’s dinner will end with him breaking off his current affair and that he must soon become “a bit of a cad.” He also confesses that he is bored with this arriving woman and has been seeing another behind her back, but can’t bring himself to break up with her, so he’s been eating two dinners all week long. He also tells Max that he and the young woman had agreed weeks ago that when the affair became stale they would simply tell each other and part as friends, but he’s been unable to tell her. Anticipating that the young lady will be devastated by his news, he arranges with the waiters to have one of them wait until the champagne is served and then come in playing a long, sad waltz on the violin. He cautions them to continue playing no matter how emotional the young lady becomes. Annie arrives, and we see that she is the young woman “artiste” who had been entertaining the diners earlier. She is young and a bit dim, though with a sunny disposition. She loves to eat, and barely acknowledges Max
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