A Disappointing Stage In Freud's Life

The Age

Monday October 17, 2005

Helen Thomson, Reviewer

THEATRE REVIEW: BERGGASSE 19, The Apartments of Sigmund Freud, devised, written and designed by Brian Lipson, directed by Susie Dee, Grant Street Theatre, until October 23. Running time: 110 minutes

THIS much-anticipated production about Sigmund Freud, devised and performed by Brian Lipson, accompanied by Pamela Rabe as fellow performer, is very disappointing.

The combination of the fascinating subject of Freud and two distinguished actors should have at least guaranteed an interesting night at the theatre.

Instead, the show's two hours seem much too long, as a confused script, an excessively complicated set and ridiculous acting demands reduce these two performers to the level of pantomime dames. The set, a cross-section of Freud's house at Berggasse 19, in Vienna, including the toilet and the basement, is surreal and interactive. Chairs move by themselves, plants grow, pictures move on the walls.

This quirky fascination with mechanical "magic" was one of the things that made Lipson's acclaimed earlier solo show, A Large Attendance at the Antechamber, such a delight. But in the context of this play, it all just seems a bit silly and pointless.

These devices are mainly used to show the many switches in time that occur, but these rapid oscillations - which range over most of Freud's life - also seem without point, although there are some occasional comic ironies.

Nothing like a coherent reading of Freud's work and character emerges, and, significantly, he is the character who never appears, except as a dummy stuck - in literally anal-retentive fashion - on the toilet.

Most works about Freud attempt a sly kind of psychoanalysis of his character, but in this show it is mostly shallow, jokey and obvious. So the climax of the finally released turd is accompanied by an explosion in one case, and booming Wagnerian music in another.

The pantomime element is suggested by the cross-dressing that goes on.

At first, the rapid off-stage changes are amusing, but eventually these are reduced to on-stage struggles in and out of costumes that merely distract both actors and audiences. It is another example of stage business obscuring the point.

Freud's ideas are reduced to exploring one chapter in his book The Interpretation of Dreams - the "injection" dream - and the play suggests, as have many earlier writers, that Freud's attraction to his sister-in-law Minna constituted an unconscious hypocrisy in his work on repressed sexuality.

Yet the script seems full of missed opportunities, repeatedly closing off interesting possibilities with jokes.

It also makes little of the political ramifications of Freud's position in Vienna in the 1930s, although towards the end Anna Freud is taken for questioning by a Nazi official.

The readiness with which people have adopted Freud's ideas, a universalising that strongly corroborates his truth, is captured in every character's reading him or herself into his dream.

Yet Lipson seems unable to explore this, or any of the ideas he raises, with any seriousness. Nor does he provide any real acting opportunities for Pamela Rabe.