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by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, directed by Guy Mignault

Théâtre français de Toronto, Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto

November 14-29, 2003

"Freud's Knock on the Door"

Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt is one of France's most popular contemporary playwrights.  Toronto's first experience of his work was the Mirvish production in 2000 of "Enigma Variations" starring Donald Sutherland that later travelled to London.  Now the 

Théâtre français de Toronto brings us the 1993 play that first brought Schmitt fame.  In 1994 "Le Visiteur" won three Molières (Paris's Tony Awards)--Best Play, Best Author and "Révélation théâtrale" (Discovery of the Year).  It's an entertaining and enjoyable work given an especially fine production, but compared to other plays of ideas like Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia", Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" or Slimane Benaïssa's "Prophètes sans dieu" seen last month at the TfT, "Le Visiteur" seems rather superficial.

In Vienna in 1938 a month after the Anschluss, Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna tries to convince her father to flee Austria.  Freud, however, though he has never entered a synagogue in his life, feels he ought to remain to show his solidarity with the Jews.  When a Gestapo officer takes Anna away for questioning, Freud despairs, whereupon a strange visitor appears who claims to be God. 

The best aspect of Schmitt's play is his characterization of God as a nonchalant dandy.  What are major worries to Freud are beneath consideration for the omniscient Visitor, who already knows Freud and Anna will escape to London, where Freud will write "Moses and Monotheism".  The most amusing section of the play is when Freud, assuming the Visitor is demanding a private session, tries to psychoanalyze him with no success.

The play would be more involving if Schmitt kept the identity of the Visitor in doubt.  Schmitt tries to suggest he may be an escapee from a mental institution or a figment of Freud's imagination, but he doesn't allow us to maintain these doubts long enough to create any ambiguity.  Nina Okens' elegant costume for the Visitor hardly suggests the madhouse and director Guy Mignault has him enter through a wall rather than the open widow beside it, thus underscoring his supernatural powers.

The debate between the atheist Freud and the Visitor at the heart of the piece is more like a summary of a textbook discussion of the subject.  Freud takes the existential view of Marx, Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre that the concept of God inhibits man from achieving self-awareness and dignity while the Visitor iterates Pascal's wager that believing in God and being wrong is better than not believing and being wrong.  Besides, the Visitor senses that Freud actually does want to believe though his emphasis on reason prevents him.  Believing in God, following Kierkegaard, has nothing to do with reason.

Supposedly this debate gives Freud hope and leads him to the decision to flee Vienna, but it is not clear why.  Given the setting the most pertinent questions--"Why is there evil?" "Where is justice?" "Why did God create such a world?"--are all too glibly fobbed off by the Visitor.  That God created the world out of love hardly explains such things.  Also, the presence of Nazis and mention of Jewish persecution and death camps in a play with the tone of a boulevard comedy may strike some as trivializing the subject.

Whatever doubts may exist about the play itself, the production is excellent.  Dennis O'Connor does not give us Freud the icon but paints a vivid, very human portrait of a father and passionate intellectual.  Martin-David Peters plays the Visitor with charm, poise and assurance.  Patricia Marceau captures the inner strength of Freud's daughter Anna.  And Martin Randez does well at showing a glimmer of weakness in a Gestapo officer who has something to hide.

Glen Charles Landry's design for Freud's study is not only very attractive but also highly imaginative.  What seems to be a brick wall is really made of alternating books that are Torahs and Bibles.  This highlights the play's debate about whether religion is a defence or a barrier.  When lit from behind the chinks between the books look like a myriad of candles.  It's one of the best-conceived designs of the year.

Unlike the best plays of ideas, "Le Visiteur" does not leave the audience with much to ponder at the close.  What makes the piece enjoyable is obviously intense commitment of all involved. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of his review appeared in TheatreWorld (UK) 2003-11-22.

Photo: Patricia Marceau, Martin Randez and Dennis O’Connor. ©2003 TfT.