The Far Country

It is hard to see how even the most hairy-handed technique could tarnish a play about Sigmund Freud's first case. There is a certain morbid fascination about a pretty young lady in the throes of psychosomatic illness that would enlist most people's interest even if it were done by marionettes in High German.

Thus Henry Denker, the author of The Far Country, had a head start when he embarked on his dramatization of Freud's treatment of Elizabeth von Ritter. Whether he increased his lead very much is open to question. There is much to be praised in The Far Country, but there are also some embarrassing weak spots.

The play's outstanding virtue is marvelous economy. Though it is not a particularly easy task to present an entire psychoanalytic study in two and a half hours, Denker does it by omitting needless chaff almost entirely. The result, admittedly, is a somewhat, oversimplified representation, but it is still a remarkable achievement. Very little that is said or done in the bulk of the play lacks purpose, and for this reason it holds audience interest to an extent that I, for one, have rarely seen before.

The Far Country's second best virtue is Kim Stanley, One of America's most versatile actresses, she is entirely convincing as Elizabeth, and she masters the wild ups and downs of the part thoroughly. When Miss Stanley is on the stage, which fortunately is most of the time, The Far Country comes alive.

Before her appearance, things are going pretty badly, Act I, Scene 1 takes place in 1938, almost 40 years after the body of the action, as Freud and his wife prepare to evacuate their Vienna flat. This seems pointless, especially when nothing later on refers back to it. Well, almost nothing. As the curtain rises on the last scene, the audience sees the flat as it looked in the beginning, with most of the furniture gone and the bookcases empty. At least, one would expect somebody to come on and say, "Who was that masked man anyway?" and somebody else to answer, "You mean you don't know? That was Sigmund Freud." But nobody does anything, and then they draw the curtain on that silly room. Why?

Miss Stanley still hasn't arived in Act I, Scene II, and we see instead a family reunion of all the Freuds. With the hugging and kissing, one is reminded of the Trapp Family Singers. But after that, the play settles down to an effective depiction of Freud's first psycho-analysis and his struggles to have his theories accepted.

In the 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 you.

The 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.

Of the 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.

Alfred Ryder's directing is not altogether successful. A certain staginess pervades the characters' actions at times, and the fade-outs are reminiscent of vaudeville.

The 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.

But all in all, The Far 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.