[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of “Freud on Cocaine,” written and directed by Howard Skora at the Whitefire Theatre through November 12.
So I’ve seen quite a few of Howard Skora’s plays over the years, all at the wonderful Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks. “Miserable with an Ocean View,” “Damaged Furniture & Gaslight House,” all brilliant. I had quite high expectations for his latest opus, “Freud on Cocaine.” Perhaps that’s not the best way to feel when seeing a new show for the first time…but hey ho as they say… what’s the worst that can happen?
Well, we all know the answer to that…but let me reassure you right away.
“Freud on Cocaine” is just as funny, clever, fascinating, purposeful and quietly insightful as the rest of Mr Skora’s work.
In fact, it might just have squeaked a lead for me.
Based on Freud’s own words, documented by him in his book “Cocaine Papers,” this insanely funny play gives us a direct and rather disturbing look into the mind of an overstimulated and wildly experimental pseudo and self-proclaimed expert of the human mind. The play is set just as Freud was developing the first flush of his psychotherapy, and happily creating the market for it with the help of cocaine, morphine and heroin, in any number of combinations. It took him ten years to make his journey through cocaine, using a gram a day. Along the way encouraging his best friend to use it to cure his addiction to heroin, his mother-in-law in order raise her spirits and get her off his back, and his wife, even while pregnant, just ‘because’.
He also, rather comically, had the backing of a couple of pharmaceutical companies who manufactured and sold the stuff, really setting the bar for drug companies almost as low as remains to this day. Which is basically Freud, fraud…making himself shamelessly rich in the process.
All this drama is expertly unfolded for our amusement by the exceptional Howard Skora with the help of his wonderful cast. Jonathan Slavin is ridiculously good as Freud and his scenes with his wife, played with steely yet passionate resolve by Sara Maraffino, are a wonder. I also adored Aaron LaPlante’s Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow…don’t you just love Austrian names? Aaron was phenomenal as he careened from addict to mania-induced co-conspirator and Sigute Miller as Freud’s erstwhile mother-in-law was utterly charming. But then the entire cast seems to have fully committed to the ‘koolaid” of Mr Skora’s beautiful manoeuvres in this world of unhinged motivations and mind-bending consequences.
I had absolutely no idea just how nuts Freud was and how much he contributed to the decades and decades of brutal misunderstanding, misdiagnoses and blatant gaslighting of women. What an ass!
“Freud on Cocaine” is utterly sublime storytelling. It takes an insane moment in our collective history and twists it into art that is hilariously relatable, heartrendingly real and intensely entertaining.
Howard Skora has a wicked way of turning pain into humor while still maintaining its original effect on his characters and their stories. “Freud on Cocaine” is an absolute trip! Love, love, loved it!
It’s running through November 12, every Saturday night at the Whitefire Theatre, so thankfully. You have time to plan a weekend between now and then around it…and you absolutely should.
Tickets
https://www.whitefiretheatre.com/
Location
Whitefire Theatre
13500 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, California 91423
Cast
Starring Jonathan Slavin, Barry Brisco, Kim Hopkins, Aaron LaPlante, Sara Maraffino, Sigute Miller, Amy Smallman–Winston
Team
The creative team includes scenic designer Dusti Cunningham, costume designer Michael Mullen, and video designer John Knowles.