Hysteria
The dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic. —Carl Jung
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Freud’s line about breaking the silence gets a laugh, but it also signifies Johnson’s real purpose. For more than a century much of the world has been waiting for the silence to be broken about one of the most troublesome aspects of Freudian theory. Near the end of the 19th century, Freud’s studies of women suffering from ailments such as paralysis that had no discernible neural origin led him to conclude that these were symptoms of “hysteria,” whose cause, he said, was “passive sexual experience before puberty”—that is, sexual molestation of young girls by their fathers. But he soon recanted this conclusion, declaring that the memories his analyses had unearthed were in fact suppressed fantasies of sexual desire for the parent. Was Freud’s change of mind sincere, or an opportunist’s bid for approval from the male-dominated scientific and publishing communities of his time? Did he deliberately ignore information that supported his original theory—perhaps because he couldn’t face the evidence that his own revered father had molested his sister?
But the central figures are Freud himself and Jessica, a young woman who comes tapping at the windows of his study in the middle of the night. Freud at first thinks she’s been sent as a practical joke by “that crackpot,” as he calls Carl Jung. But Jessica won’t be turned away; she rips off her blouse, threatening to cause a scandal if Freud won’t grant her an audience. She claims to be the daughter of one of Freud’s former patients, a woman whose private pain was transformed in print into a celebrated case history. Jessica’s mother suffered from agoraphobia, anorexia, and paralysis until Freud’s analysis unlocked a fantasy—or a memory—of being orally raped by her own father when she was a child. For grim reasons I won’t reveal, Jessica insists on reenacting her mother’s analysis, enlisting Dali to take the role of Freud so that Freud himself can watch. And why not? As Jung would have it, he is the dream’s actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.
Meanwhile, for audiences unused to theater in this vein, director John Malkovich’s well-acted, impeccably designed, technically slick staging provides a fine introduction. Mariann Mayberry (the cast’s only Steppenwolf ensemble member—Alan Wilder, originally scheduled to play Freud, dropped out) gives a powerful, committed performance as Jessica, using a surprising vocal depth and richness to portray a suffering individual who’s also a sort of mythic heroine. Marc Vann’s Dali is funny but never over-the-top; Nicholas Rudall’s Yahuda is a perfect straight man for the other characters’ antics. Best of all is Yasen Peyankov as Freud: an actor of centered grace, he subtly distinguishes between Freud the dreamer and Freud the dream participant, movingly conveying his character’s response to his confusing but transformative journey. David Gropman’s set re-creates Freud’s study in vivid detail, from the towering shelves packed with books, classical busts, and primitive phallic totems to the quintessentially Freudian couch and armchair; Virgil Johnson’s costumes, Paul Gallo’s lighting, and Richard Woodbury’s sound (including Hindemith-like incidental music) ably aid Malkovich as he guides the cast and viewers through Johnson’s daft yet dark dreamworld.
