Did expectations for Séduction prove too high? That’s the question being asked after the latest production from Swiss playwright Lukas Bärfuss and director Gian Manuel Rau has left some critics wanting more. The play explores a fascinating, if unsettling, premise: the human need to be deceived.
Bärfuss, known for challenging audiences with his thought-provoking work, drew inspiration from the case of Helg Sgarbi, a Swiss con man who swindled a billionaire heiress out of 7 million euros in 2007. The play asks whether we are all, on some level, susceptible to manipulation.
Ten years ago, Rau and Bärfuss collaborated on Le Voyage d’Alice en Suisse at the Théâtre du Grütli in Geneva, a production lauded for its nuanced exploration of a woman choosing to end her life in Switzerland. That earlier work opened a “night of existential debate,” according to one observer, and Rau’s direction was widely praised. However, Séduction, translated by Mathilde Sobottke, appears to be missing that same spark.
The production features Vincent Bonillo as Hauke Born, a prisoner incarcerated in Bavaria’s Landsberg prison – the same facility that once held Hitler in 1924 – alongside Alexandra Marcos as Tania, a psychologist, and Agathe Hauser as Sonja, believed to be Hauke’s daughter. While the actors are giving their all, the play hasn’t quite come together as hoped.
