HYSTERIA. To 10 September.

Exeter

HYSTERIA
by Terry Johnson

Northcott Theatre To 10 September 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 10 Sept 2.30pm
Audio-described 8 September Post-show talk 7 Sept
Runs 2hr 30min One interval

TICKETS: 01392 493493
www.northcott-theatre.co.uk
Review: Hazel Brown 25 August

Brilliantly funny farce that leaves you close to tears.Terry Johnson's play takes the works of Sigmund Freud, mixing them with real and imagined parts of his life, to create hysterically funny scenes and sequences, but finally leaves you close to tears.

Alone in his study in London, the elderly Freud is close to death. As the play opens, Paul McCleary, by turns gloriously touchy, aggressive and defensive, times the length of his silence superbly before he utters the first line of the play: If you are waiting for me to break the silence, then you will be disappointed, which brings the first of many laughs. But by the time it becomes the play's closing line, you have travelled the gamut of emotions.

You are taken on a brilliantly funny journey through Freud's life and thinking by the addition of several characters from his life: his doctor, his anima the female side of his nature brought to life by Leah Fletcher as a strange young woman who arrives at the French doors to his study in the pouring rain and initially gains his attention by stripping - the surrealist Salvador Dali, and his daughter Matilda.

All the actors produce wonderfully funny scenes, rushing in and out of doors and cupboards, reappearing with underwear, Wellington boots, a bicycle covered with snails and other comic touches to create confusion and forcing Freud to invent incredible scenarios to cover up the chaos. Roger Swaine is avuncular and touching as the doctor, Michael Colgan is convincingly mad and Spanish by turns as Dali and Leah Fletcher gives a finely judged performance as the disturbed young woman, Jessica.

The nightmare scene towards the end of the play, (very difficult for the designer), complete with melting clocks and ghostly images from Freud's past, achieves the level of shock intended and is a theatrical triumph. So, as well as enjoying the fun and wit of the play, I left the theatre with a greater understanding of Freud's work and a feeling of enormous pity for both the man and the people he tried to help. A production not to be missed.

Sigmund Freud: Paul McCleary
Voice of Anna Freud/Matilde Freud: Zahra Ahmadi
Jessica: Leah Fletcher
Abraham Yahuda: Roger Swaine
Salvador Dali: Michael Colgan

Director: Kate Saxon
Designer: Libby Watson
Lighting: James Farncombe
Sound/Music: Adam Cork
Fight Director: Kate Waters

2005-09-06 08:59:01