Word: freuds
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...second act, Freud gives Elizabeth the treatment. The doctor has an electrical current machine which is utterly useless, and he works it on Miss Stanley to prove that her illness has a mental cause. The instrument is an elongated vibrator, and when Freud applies it to the painful area, Elizabeth's thigh, she squeals something like, "It feels good ... ooh ... more, more." I don't know how psychological this is supposed to be, but it's pretty weird, let me tell...
...third act, except for the closing scene, is quite good. Steven Hill, as Freud, is at his best here, but never quite decides how he is going to talk. Most of the time his lines are spoken in a clipped, machine gun manner that is somewhat disturbing...
...supporting players, Lili Darvas, as Freud's hateful, race-conscious mother, stands out. Salome Jens, his wife, seems a bit confused as to whether she is supposed to be jealous of Elizabeth, mad at Sigmund, or loyal, and she generally has a look which can only be described as miserably bland. Sam Wanamaker does not make a clear impression in his portrayal of Freud's colleague...
...setting, by Donald Oenslager, also leaves something to be desired. It is easy to see where Freud found the psychosexual basis for his theories; a volume in his bookcase startlingly resembles my copy of Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. And the shelves also reveal that Freud was a compulsive stealer of library books...
...Country is a good play, and could be better. Despite its simplification, however, it may still be over the heads of the New York tourist trade. The reaction of people sitting around me was typically, "My God! What is he doing?" and I had the impression that Freud was as much on trial last night at the Wilbur as he ever was in his own time...