Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler

"When Adolf Hitler lies on Sigmund Freud's couch and begins to talk about his dreams, one wonders whether the course of history might have been different. Such is the conceit of the new play by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, co-creators of hit TV comedies Birds of a Feather and Goodnight Sweetheart. Their newest and, in their words, most challenging play is based on a meeting between Freud and a young Hitler that remarkably could have happened, but never did."

"In 1905, a six-year-old Hitler was taken to his local GP due, in part, to persistent bed-wetting. His father had been beating him. The doctor informed Hitler's mother, Klara, that there was a clinic in Vienna run by Dr Sigmund Freud that might be able to help. But Hitler's father, Alois, refused. At Upstairs at the Gatehouse, history is rewritten: Alois reluctantly agrees. Klara and Adolf travel to Vienna, where Dr Freud identifies the child's bruising and recommends that the beatings stop."

"What transpires is a decades-long Oedipal relationship between a young Hitler and an older Freud. The psychoanalyst becomes fascinated by the wounded child's insatiable desire to take revenge against his father, but is unable to see the catastrophic potential of his rage. Hitler is equally fascinated by Freud, the father figure from whom he seeks admiration while simultaneously rejecting it. The hope to be healed clings on with an ever-loosening grip, while his megalomania and antisemitism grow inexorably."

An imagined 1905 journey brings six-year-old Adolf Hitler, bruised from his father's beatings and suffering persistent bed-wetting, to Sigmund Freud's Vienna clinic after a GP's referral. Alois initially resists but ultimately agrees; Freud recognizes the abuse and urges it to stop. A decades-long Oedipal bond develops as Freud becomes fascinated by the child's vengeful desires yet fails to foresee their catastrophic potential. Hitler seeks paternal admiration from Freud while rejecting him, and his fragile hope for healing diminishes as megalomania and antisemitism intensify. The scenario weaves parallel biographies into a plausible timeline with convincing relationships and witty dialogue.

Read at www.london-unattached.com