Venus in Fur Asks Essential Questions

It takes a certain kind of vulnerability to create powerful theatre. From April 9-11, the stars of the student-produced version of David Ives’ 2010 play Venus in Fur put their acting skills on fearless, intimate display in a 90-minute showing at the Hepburn Zoo. Featuring actors Caitlin Duffy ’15.5 and August Rosenthal ’17 under the direction of Joelle Mendoza-Echthart ’15, Venus in Fur was Duffy’s senior thesis work and a featured performance of the Spring Student Symposium.

There may have been only two actors, but the presence of a play within the play made for twice the number of characters to keep track of. The story takes place in a director’s office in modern-day New York City, as exasperated playwright-director Thomas Novachek, played by Rosenthal, struggles to cast the part of Vanda von Dunayev, the female lead in his adaptation of the 1870 German novel Venus in Furs. Just as he is about to call it quits for the day, the stunning Vanda Jordan, played by Duffy, saunters in, late and unannounced. Following a string of profanities dramatically lamenting her tardiness, the bold, brash and conveniently-named actress announces excitedly, “I’m, like, made for this part, I swear to God.”

Vanda proceeds to strip off her top layer of clothes, revealing a seductive black leather corset, black underwear and a dog collar around her neck. Her energy is palpable. Thomas, exhausted from an entire day’s worth of fruitless auditions, impatiently tells her to not bother auditioning right now. Desperate for the role, however, Vanda dances around his instructions, first by wallowing loudly in self-pity and then by slipping into her costume – a long, fancy white dress – whilst he is distracted on the phone. And so Thomas finds himself entangled in the longest, strangest and most emotionally-draining audition of his life, with modern-day actress Vanda voicing the role of nineteenth-century, Austro-Hungarian Vanda von Dunayev as he reluctantly reads the lines of her lover, Severin von Krushemski.

Duffy’s acting is sharp, lively and above all, utterly daring. Her colorful and unrestrained depiction of Vanda is a constant source of disbelieving amusement. From her ridiculous pre-audition warm up (shouting “KA-KA! KA-KA! INK. SPOT. INK! SPOT!” under Thomas’s impatient glare) to her shameless inquiries, like, “And what’s this? A maypole? Phallic symbol?” in reference to an iron pipe, the audience spends the better part of the beginning of the show giggling at Vanda’s antics.

In line with Vanda’s brash personality, Duffy is unabashedly loud and expressive onstage. Her words reverberate loudly through the room, while her abrupt, sweeping movements, coupled with the clacking of her high heels, produce an endless stream of bangs, thuds and crashes. All the while, thunder rumbles in the background, foreshadowing the mysterious and faintly menacing nature of the coming scenes.

Vanda’s interpretation of the play clashes heavily with Thomas’ vision. She labels it as S&M porn, while he considers it a beautiful love story. Written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the real-life book Venus in Furs revolves around themes of female dominance and sadomasochism, with Krushemski begging Dunayev to inflict sexually degrading acts on him. Indeed, the term ‘masochism’ actually originated from the author’s last name.

What soon transpires is a blurring of reality and fiction, as actress and director immerse themselves deep within their respective roles. Though Vanda occasionally interrupts the heat of the dialogue with questions like, “And that’s symbolic, right?” the distinction between the people and their temporary characters becomes increasingly hazy as they progress through the script. Vanda demonstrates a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the play, eventually feeling inclined to instruct Thomas in certain scenes.

Yet the contention between the two continues. Vanda insists that the story is pornographic, sexist and degrading toward women, and pauses at several points to protest some particularly inflammatory lines. In response, Thomas rants, “How can you be so good at playing her, and be so fucking stupid about her?” When she tries to point fingers, he tells her, “There are no villains in this piece.” Furthermore, when Vanda tries to connect Krushemski’s thirst for degradation with an abusive childhood, he explodes, “Let’s not be trite, all right? This is not anthropology, or sociology. This is a play. Don’t generalize. There’s a lot more going on here than corporal punishment issues.”

Venus in Fur unravels at rapid speed, and the development of Vanda and Thomas’s actor-director relationship moves parallel to Dunayev and Krushemski’s steamy affair. The sexual tension mounts, the degradation escalates and the audition stretches on far longer than anticipated. Each word uttered onstage is strategic and significant.

“Everything is interwoven. So if they make a reference to some element of Greek mythology, it relates in some way to what’s going on in the room,” director Mendoza-Echthart said.

References to the goddess Venus throughout the script seem to suggest that Vanda is no mortal creature. Her eyes take on an increasingly fierce and crazed look, prompting what appears to be genuine fear within Thomas in the final scene. And so, as the end of the play takes a sudden, jarring, mythological turn – complete with ominous, otherworldly music, crashing thunder and flashing red lights – fundamental questions remain: Is Vanda the goddess of Venus in human form, or an actress pretending to be a goddess? At what point does she decide to punish Thomas, or does she plan it all along? And why does Thomas let her stay for so long?

Venus in Fur may be a two-person play with a minimal and unchanging set, but the evolving dynamics are astonishingly complex. Duffy was keenly aware of the dissonance between her views and Vanda’s.

“Because I was playing Vanda, I had to believe that she was right most, if not all of the time. But objectively, I agree with Thomas that this play isn’t as simple as good guy/bad guy,” Duffy said. “Vanda is very set in her beliefs, though I think there are some moments that catch her off guard and make her question some of her principles, even briefly.”

The overbearing ways of Vanda – both Jordan and von Dunayev – ensure that Duffy frequently commands the attention of the entire room. Thomas, though significantly less dramatic than the wildly reactionary and sexual actress before him, does not let his voice go unheard. Through his lengthy monologues, in which he becomes progressively invested in the role of Krushemski, his utterly serious demeanor casts a powerful weight on the ambience of the room.

However, Rosenthal recognized the importance of sometimes subduing his role in order to create a bigger space for Vanda. In the beginning scenes, when Vanda’s theatrical introduction is the focal point of the story, Thomas is intentionally boring and passive. As the audition progresses, however, his character takes on a more prominent role.

“It’s important to share the playing, move that experience back and forth,” Rosenthal said.

Mendoza-Echthart kept this balancing act in mind while casting for the part.

“The play calls for a very specific sort of disposition in the male. He has to have a certain confidence, embody the role with a little bit of arrogance and be able to go head to head with Vanda,” she stated. “The great thing about August is that he has a fight in him. If we had wanted a doormat, we wouldn’t have cast August.”

Meanwhile, Duffy’s part as Vanda allowed her to better understand her acting.

“I usually get cast as the bitch, the whore, and… well, the bitch and the whore, basically,” she said.

Initially, she had thought that accepting the role of Vanda, who is arguably a bitch and a whore, would involve undesirable type-casting. However, she soon realized that the character embodied much more than mere brashness or promiscuity.

“I got to make a bunch of wrong choices in searching for the right choice,” she said. “I made a decision pretty early on in our process about who I think Vanda is, where she comes from and why she has showed up at Thomas’s auditions. I had to make that choice because it informed every choice I made throughout the play.”

Though Duffy may have established a clear narrative for Vanda in her mind, the actual text of the play teems with uncertainty, neglecting to shed any definitive light on Vanda’s identity or motives. It is meant to be ambiguous, or, as Vanda mistakenly utters on several occasions, “ambivalent.” What the show does accomplish, however, is a rigorous thought experiment. Venus in Fur is more than the dysfunctional story of an actress who seduces and tortures a director. It probes each participant – onstage and offstage – to examine their own lives more closely.

“It made us all think about dynamics in a relationship – who holds the power, what that means, if that’s something that we’ve constructed, or if it’s intrinsically part of every relationship,” Mendoza-Echthart said. “We never openly answered the question. I personally don’t have a clear answer.”

Early on in the audition, Thomas tells Vanda that he loves the size of his characters’ emotions. This statement holds true for the entire scope of the student production. Neither actor is afraid of full, liberated expression. Even as their true selves and adopted characters become largely indiscernible from one another, the extremes of their experiences are never muted. Fury, passion, jealousy, confusion and myriad other emotions shape this utterly unforgettable story. Though small in operation, with a cast and crew of only 10 students, this showing of Venus in Fur touches on all the big, essential questions. And luckily, it knows better than to try to answer them.