REVIEW: Hysteria

REVIEW: Hysteria
Image: Photo: Robert Catto

It’s 1938 in Hamstead, London, war time and Sigmund Freud (Jo Turner) has fled Nazi occupied Austria, he’s 82 years old, tired and suffering from cancer of the jaw. It’s the year before his death. Hysteria imagines what his final days may have been like.

A young woman, Jessica, (Miranda Daughtry) comes knocking on his window one rainy night pleading for help. She’s hysterical, gags repeatedly, has a badly affected arthritic hand and is inclined to get naked and hide in the cupboard but the ‘Father of Psychoanalysis’ already has a full case load.

It’s a dramatic start to a play by multi-award winning playwright Terry Johnson, that’s at its best right at the very beginning and the end using some wonderful black and white strobing visual projections, audio and smoke effects. The set is large, imaginative and has weird backwards slanting doors. The strangeness gets even more surreal when the very tall Salvador Dali (Michael McStay) enters the set and this real life meeting between these two geniuses sparks with brilliance as they converse in chaotic psychobabble.

A private file of Freud’s personal letters has him questioning his relationship with his father and daughter. Hysteria is rich in Freud’s theories, it paints them as wildly controversial- there’s penis envy, Oedipus complex and above all his theory that hysteria is caused by sexual shock in childhood.

Freud’s physician Abraham Yahuda, (Wendy Strehlow) passes very well in a male role and if it weren’t for a feminine voice would have totally fooled the audience.

When first produced in London in 1993 the play was called Hysteria – Or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis. Hysteria opens discussion on sexual abuse, incest and Freud’s controversial theories and will fascinate people interested in psychology.

Until Apr 30, Various performance times. Eternity Playhouse, 39 Burton St, Darlinghurst. $38-$54. Tickets & Info: www.darlinghursttheatre.com or PH: 02 8356 9987.

Reviewed by Mel Somerville.

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