Just the hint of a ship's railing before them. On the moonlit deck of an ocean liner in mid-voyage Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung would appear to be returning from a fateful trip they've made together to America, although as the play progresses one begins to suspect something else is going on here. Freud has declared the younger, strappingly big, Aryan Jung to be his successor and spiritual son, but despite his great respect for the older man, Jung is increasingly anxious to free himself from Freudian dogma and branch out into what Freud considers loonier places. Their attempts to smooth over the increasing tension between them fail and soon they are involved in a bitter shouting match about which one of them is hysterical and whose ideas are crazier, penis envy or synchronicity. The Steward is concerned that shouting about penises is going to disturb the ladies in the ballroom, and then Freud has a fainting fit and an iceberg looms on the horizon, and the sailors are singing patriotic German songs. Who will be allowed on the life boats? A surreal investigation of the ultimate battle between two great but slightly demented giants of twentieth century thought.
Published in Mysterium & Other Plays.