Dreaming With Freud

There are three criteria that promise me a wonderful evening of play-watching at small Paris theaters: a production that lasts around 75 minutes, uses one or two actors, and features superb artists with established reputations. These three criteria were easily met in “Freud et la Femme de Chambre” (“Freud and the Housekeeper”). The play, written by Leonardo de la Fuente, was directed by Alain Sachs and put on at the Montparnasse Theater. Nassima Benchicou as Marie and François Berléand as Sigmund Freud were featured in a splendid production. It turned out to be full of witty interchange between the duo of actors, while also evoking serious contemplation of Freud’s work. This was not at all a high-brow approach to the master’s contributions. It was more a hilarious, comical drama that involved popular concepts like the unconscious and applications of dream theory and psychoanalysis.

The setting was a large hotel room in 1923 Rome, and the entire play unfolded in that circumscribed space. There was an ensuite bathroom whose door opened and closed on occasion, giving depth to the room. We never see its interior. However, it served as a prop for some very amusing banter full of hints and speculation, none of which leads to any overt sexual contact. Sigmund Freud never gives into temptation, no matter from which angle it approached. There was a large window on one side of the room that permitted the housekeeper to interact with people passing in the street below. We could hear neighborhood activity, as when military troops or Marie’s friends pass by. Italy was in political turmoil at the time, but the play only hints at that connection. In fact, we learn nothing about the reason for Freud’s visit to Rome with his daughter Anna.

There was a large bed with its head against the room’s main wall, on which hangs a crucifix. The bed is a curious center of attention, as much provocative action and verbal exchange take place on and around it. I laugh as I note that Marie the housekeeper will jump on and off it, sit on it, stretch out on it for analysis. She will do as she very well wishes, but that bed will be used only for talk and sleep. And the audience will laugh at the outrageousness of it all. Sexuality was in the air, but never concretized. Sometimes, a bed is just, well, for sleeping. This, mind you, is in the context where Marie is outfitted in a housekeeper’s uniform that enhances her very attractive figure, giving her space to romp and strike a variety of poses, without more, as the lawyers say.

At the play’s debut, Freud is in his bed asleep. Marie knocks, and since there is no answer, she enters and proceeds to open the blinds that will surely cause him to wake up. He is upset by the disturbance. However, the conversation starts with his inquiry about who she is, while she feigns ignorance about him. We quickly find out that she had met him when she was a 10-year-old and hoped for another encounter to cultivate a relationship. She had even dreamt about him, which piques his curiosity. She also reveals she thought that he was a circus hypnotist, a theatrical shot that is delivered almost imperceptibly. He insists he uses hypnotism to heal people.

The play proceeds with skillful directorial guidance, and Marie is soon posing the questions—not with analytic precision, but with guileless insouciance. The dialogue goes in several directions, with deeper and deeper probing on both sides. The play’s author and director illustrate playfully Freud’s mannerisms. At one point, he is lying on the bed and Marie is sitting in a chair slowly stroking her chin. Another time, she replies to him with flair and condescension, “Je comprends” (I understand), and the audience rolls in laughter at the impeccable timing. Freud gradually cedes territory. We learn some important information.

He tells her about a dream and gives her his interpretation of it. At the center of his formulation is his father. Marie uses her own down-to-earth approach and concludes the dream is about Freud himself. She has no skills to debate and closes the matter with the suggestion that her conclusion speaks for itself. She seemed to have a point. After all, he was talking as though his logic was flawless, while she framed her reasoning in a plain, intuitive way, as her culture would have dictated. He also noted that there was a bubbly, upbeat spontaneity about her and her problem-solving that led him at one point to moan about his inability to find solutions to his own problems. He confessed that he was unable to define love or loss. The loss focused on the deaths of a daughter and a grandchild. Nothing else was said about love.

Other themes emerged in after-theater discussion with friends. One was Freud’s denial of God’s existence. It highlighted even more sharply his extensive mention of pain—concerning death and the ache he carried in his jaw that had required surgery. Put together, his complaints had surely contributed to the despondency that he described. I could not help feeling some sympathy for his emotional state, which was expressed so realistically by the actor. One could see some humility in his need for solace. He admitted his suffering and recognized somewhat that self-analysis was not effective succor. There was a scene toward the end where noise caused Marie to rush toward the window. Someone was hurt in the street below the hotel room. Marie turned and screamed at Freud to get help. He froze. She accused him of selfishness and wondered how he could be so self-absorbed and taken by his intellectual brooding and preoccupation with observation and analysis. She asked him about his apparent lack of interest in executing action to help others. In an incredible surprise, it turned out that the entire narrative was only a dream. Still, one is left with the practical question of how to meld active care with theorizing. And there is the frightening thought that, being human, we all have frailties and vulnerabilities that will, at some time, bring us low and dependent on others. ■

Ezra E.H. Griffith, M.D., is professor emeritus of psychiatry and African American Studies at Yale University.