Whimsy That Defies The Usual Analysis
The Sunday Age
Sunday October 16, 2005
MELBOURNE ARTS FESTIVAL REVIEW: BERGGASSE 19 - The Apartments of Sigmund Freud Grant St Theatre, Southbank To October 23
BRIAN LIPSON'S Freudian burlesque throws in everything except the great man himself. Instead we get, among others, his wife Martha and her sister Minna, both played by Lipson, Sabina Spielrein, the Russian girl who was Jung's first analysand and Jung, both played by Pamela Rabe. It's a wild ride, with moments of inspired silliness and moments that are just silly. Lipson's set, a cross-section of the Freuds' apartment, is itself a comic machine that responds to the dialogue: pictures move across the wall, and at one point a turd travels from the toilet to the outside drains. It is funny and you can't deny Lipson has a fertile imagination and that there is something attractive about his libertarian dramaturgy; he and Rabe put in spirited performances. Susie Dee directs but the show is Lipson's. On the other hand you may be baffled by the mixture of rude whimsy and learned, sophisticated satire.
© 2005 The Sunday Age
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