Thomas Ostermeier’s productions of classic plays which visit Britain from the Schaubühne in Berlin, of which he is artistic director, usually display at least one crucial element of flagrant reconceptualisation. In this case, however, what distinguishes his new version (edited with Florian Borchmeyer) of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 drama is its resolutely low-key approach.

Bernhardi, a senior consultant in a medical clinic, refuses to permit a priest to administer the last rites to a patient, reasoning that the distress caused by her learning she is about to die would be greater than the comfort given her by the ritual. A scandal blows up in society, the media and ultimately in parliament, culminating in Bernhardi being sentenced to two months in prison. Much is made of the fact that Bernhardi is a Jew. He, however, remains clear-sighted throughout, refusing to play either the anti-Semitism card or to engage in equally reductive science-versus-religion binaries.

The play clearly alludes to the bias of early 20th-century Viennese society, and is also considered one of the first to focus on white-collar workplace politicking. Whatever Bernhardi says or does, or does not, will be over-interpreted by accusers and defenders alike, so he determines to give as little ammunition as possible to anyone. Yet Schnitzler called his play “ a comedy of character”, and Ostermeier’s production is sympathetic to such a view, especially in the medical faculty meeting which is the dramatic fulcrum. The quirks of various characters are visible, particularly the urbane weaselling of Hans-Jochen Wagner as government minister Flint; earlier, after the clinic’s director offers to get Bernhardi off if he will endorse the Gentile candidate for a vacant post, Jörg Hartmann’s Bernhardi feels compelled to douse his hands in disinfectant gel.

It is Hartmann’s composure which personifies the tone of the production. The set is simply a white box on which locations and descriptions are written for each act (“photographs on the walls” is, yes, written on the wall), and the affair is played as an administrative rather than a political or moral issue. It honours the material, but one has to commit to a drama which is almost entirely implicit, and at two hours 40 minutes without an interval that can be lot of commitment to ask.

Written for the Financial Times.