30 Beats Is a Sexually Transmitted Disaster
Sex never ceases to inspire. The controversial 1897 play Reichen, by the equally maligned and admired Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, is a tango of seduction and interconnected sexual encounters between five sets of lovers in the sack, each one of whom has sex twice. It has been adapted many times—most famously in Max Ophuls’s 1950 French film La Ronde, most recently as the Lincoln Center musical Hello, Again in 1994. An updated rewrite by David Hare called The Blue Room opened on Broadway in 1998 with Nicole Kidman in a highly publicized nude scene that had ticket buyers standing in line for hours to secure seats with unrestricted views. Well, brace yourself. It’s back again, this time as 30 Beats—a low-budget independent film by first-time writer-director Alexis Lloyd that is about as sexy as a stale noodle kugel. Read More
