Freud on cocaine? Psychoanalyze that! * Oregon ArtsWatch

Freud used cocaine avidly early in his career, following a gram-a-day habit. In the late 1800s, cocaine was not treated as a street drug, and Freud wrote positively about its beneficial uses. He prescribed cocaine to patients and recommended it enthusiastically to friends, including his future wife Martha and her hostile mother. He believed the drug could be used without risk of addiction and credited it with improving mood, facilitating mental clarity, and alleviating social anxiety. His references to cocaine appear in “Cocaine Papers” and in pre-marriage correspondence. A play built from these materials presents Freud’s cocaine enthusiasm through comedic, modern-leaning dialogue and music while keeping period-appropriate costumes and settings.

"Freud was an avid cocaine user early in his career - a quite exuberant one, indulging a gram-a-day habit. In the late 1800s, cocaine was not a street drug, and Freud wrote glowingly about its beneficial uses - which he believed could be experienced without any risk of addiction. He prescribed cocaine to patients and recommended it enthusiastically to friends, his future wife, Martha, even Martha's hostile mother; with the help of cocaine, he succeeded in briefly winning over his future mother-in-law."

"His writing about cocaine is published in a collection of "Cocaine Papers," and he refers to the drug fondly in his pre-marriage correspondence with Martha. He lauded cocaine's ability to improve mood, facilitate mental clarity, and alleviate social anxiety (including his own)."

"The play's first act is quite comical, in a way befitting a story about cocaine use. Freud and those to whom he introduces the joys of cocaine display all the magical thinking of the impaired, with abandon that feels especially amusing given that they are in a time and place (Vienna in the 1880s) that we would not tend to associate with such excess."

"Skora's dialogue and the various music cues are pointedly modern at times, even as the costumes and settings are appropriate to the period, but such choices aid the storytelling. Watching the action, I was struck by how current th"

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