What if Brutus hadn’t plunged in the dagger? If Franz Ferdinand’s limo hadn’t taken a wrong turn? Or if JFK had survived?
In Dr Freud Will See You know, Mrs Hitler, North Londoners Laurence Marks & Maurice Gran (Birds of a Feather, Goodnight Sweetheart and much else) have posed a cracking headscratcher.
We know that Adolf had a desperately unhappy childhood. Father Alois (much older than wife Klara) was a drunk, sadistic bully and the root cause of his deeply disturbed son’s behavioural problems, nightmares and bed-wetting.
Mrs Hitler had been advised by the family GP to take the troubled and unhappy Adolf to Vienna to see Dr Freud. Alois refused to pay the train fares … and the rest is history.
But, what if …?
In the world premiere of this ingeniously constructed drama, we see how the initial consultation might have gone.
And how, a decade later, the flawed, self-possessed, aspiring artist and composer (a dark, intense, chilling study by Sam Mac) might have chanced upon Freud (a magnificent, avuncular and intense performance by Jonathan Tafler) at a lecture in Vienna.
In the play, the father of psychoanalysis takes pity on the inadequate and troubled teenager, gives him a cash job as a housepainter. His daughter Anna (brilliantly portrayed by Ruby Ablett) is intrigued by this moderately talented and angry young man.
There are further encounters with Adolph complaining to Freud of being continually rejected, usually by Jews. In a WWI field hospital where the wounded Adolf is recovering from a gas attack, he discovers – with Freud’s help – his destiny to revenge the betrayal of his homeland and lead it to glory.
The play darkens considerably as Hitler comes to power, but the imagined, tangential contacts continue until the Freud family flee to Hampstead.
Director Isaac Bernier-Doyle has coaxed extraordinary performances from this outstanding cast.
If at times difficult viewing, the play deals with many of the most abhorrent events of the 20th Century and rehearses fundamental questions about self, culpability and conscience. Although littered with casual antisemitism and violence, there are many flashes of searing comedy.
It’s hard to think of a better venue than Upstairs at the Gatehouse for this excellent work: just down the road from where Freud spent the final year of his life.
Mr Freud Will See You Now Mrs Hitler runs Upstairs at The Gatehouse in Highgate until September 28.
