That's the man, officer. I'd recognize him anywhere.

PHOENIX THEATER, a non-profit English-language theatre company that for the past three years has been presenting contemporary plays in English, aims to perform serious but entertaining works. Our next performance is Hysteria, by British playwright Terry Johnson. Described as a 'deeply disturbing comedy' or 'a shocking demented farce' the play received great praise in both London and Los Angeles.

An artist needs a wellington like an analyst needs a bicycle.

HYSTERIA presents the secret story of Sigmund Freud, who apparently changed his theories about the etiology of hysteria to avoid trouble with the growing threat of Nazism in Vienna. It takes place on his last night, after he has already left Vienna and taken up residence in London. Dying of cancer, he has taken morphine to relieve the pain but it also releases the demons in his own repressed unconscious. He is visited by surrealist painter, Salvador Dali, who has used Freud's theories of the unconscious to support his own movement, and a mysterious figure whose purpose is eventually revealed. At the same time, Freud is forced to defend his attempt to undermine the Biblical myths of the Jewish faith. The play is hysterical, riveting, and challenging.

CAST:

Sigmund Freud............Maurice Harrington (Entertaining Mr Sloane; Goodbye Kitty)

Jessica.........................Melanie Micco (Art; Goodbye Kitty)

Dr Yahuda...................Paul Jackson (A Man for All Seasons; Nobody Here But Us Chickens)

Salvador Dali..............Norman Szabo (A Man for All Seasons; Wobblehead Studios)

PHOENIX THEATRE has produced: