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It’s a miracle.In a few brilliant therapy sessions Carl Jung
(Sam Robards) is able to cure his very first patient, Sabina Spielrein, using Freud’s
new-fangled “psyctherapy.” Jung has learned his techniques from reading Freud
but this apparently devoted student does not get the name of the new treatment quite
right. After only a few quick scenes, Jung cures Spielrein (Abby Brannell), who suffers
from such severe, even violent, hysteria that she has been institutionalized in Doctor
Emil Kraepelin’s Burghölzli Mental Hospital.
Kraeplin’s descriptions of the course of unmedicated psychosis are still used
in today’s texts. His clinic was where severe cases from affluent families were sent.
The therapy as shown would fit more easily in the current health insurance model which
posits that most mental afflictions can be cured in five to ten sessions. After this spectacular brief treatment, in which
the analyst speaks more than the patient, The Talking Cure is able to get down to
its real business: the sexual attraction
between doctor and patient and its ultimate consummation, then conclusion.
Sabina, a Jewish,
educated, beautiful, eighteen year old woman from Russia writhes and rages in restraints
before Jung, the Swiss son of a pastor and neophyte analyst. He confidently tells the attendants to remove the
ties from her wrists and in a few penetrating questions engages her attention and gets
past her resistance to the heart of her hysteria, an abusive father and the patient’s
wild and frustrated sexual drive. She is
calmed by his understanding and ultimately cured. Only
cursory attention is paid to the frustration this bright young woman must also be
experiencing in the Victorian environment of her time and the liberating effect of being
recognized for her intelligence. Ultimately
she becomes an analyst in her own right.
Jung wrote Freud about his results which led to their first meeting
lasting thirteen hours. Jung became
Freud’s heir apparent. Freud was so impressed that he sent analyst Otto Gross (Henri
Lubatti) to Jung for treatment. Gross is a
cocaine addict and convinced that the key to sanity is to act out one’s libido. He is as unconstrained as Jung is restrained but he
plants the seed of permission in Jung, enabling him to act upon his own fantasies with a
seductive and willing Sabina. Jung's attraction to Sabina is palpable. However, as
portrayed in The Talking Cure, guilt is a more powerful force in Jung’s life
than libido.
The
most authentic moments in the play are between analysts. It is Vienna, at the beginning of the twentieth
century. Ideas fly at a dizzying pace. As The Talking Cure is based on history,
one can probably assume that the vitality exists because some of the actual dialogue is
available. Even in these moments of
professional debate Jung comes across as stiff and repressed.
Freud
unsuccessfully cautions Jung against crossing the doctor/patient boundary. As is so often the case, the heir apparent and his
mentor eventually have a falling out, ostensibly over Jung’s embracing mythology and
incorporating it in treatment as well as theory. Currently,
the expectation is that the doctor patient relationship is based on clearly defined roles. The doctor treats the patient. In the beginning, however, the analysts became each
other's patients sharing
dreams and giving interpretations. As
portrayed here,
the fluidity and ambiguity were present in every encounter.
Hampton’s script covers too much territory--character development
suffers, complexity suffers. In the end he
covers too little. Psychological treatment
becomes caricature, dialogue between analysts is truncated, ideas are unexplained and the
audience is left unsatisfied as scene change after scene change takes place at bewildering
speed.
How is it that
Jung so quickly divines the young woman’s problem?
How is it that his contributions, such as the concepts of animus and anima
and the notion of complex, are not generally known to have been suggested by his wife and
Sabina? In the interest of all encompassing
docudrama there is no time to develop those thoughts. Psychology-wise
audiences will probably find The Talking Cure superficial, and those less fluent
in the field will be left little better informed. There is vocabulary, but without definitions. In the end, both history and
drama are poorly served.
Abby
Brammell is a wonderfully seductive and convincingly intelligent Sabrina. Harris Yulin and Otto Gross breathe life into the
parts of Freud and Gross. The real miracle is
in Peter Wexler’s dazzling set design which keeps pace with the rapidly changing
action. Through projections, a curved screen effectively becomes
everything from the sterile Swiss clinic to the enticing clutter of Freud’s office
and the lushness of Jung’s lakeside home. Had
Hampton covered less, we would know and feel more.
April 7, 2000 -
Karen Weinstein
