Play About Mahler Off-Broadway

[redrising]

A friend of mine just told me about a play that recently opened Off-Broadway where Mahler is the main character. It's about his relationship with Alma and also his meeting with Freud. I thought everyone on the site might find it interesting!

http://www.finalanalysistheplay.com

[waderice]

Unfortunately, I fail to find a connection for Stalin with Freud and Mahler, but I guess I'll have to see the play to find out.

Wade

[barry guerrero]

Was Stalin in Vienna during the time of Mahler and Freud?  I don't think so but I could be wrong. Hitler at least had some connection: he would go see/listen to Mahler conducting Wagner.

[James Meckley]

Stalin was in Vienna for several weeks in early 1913, meeting with Trotsky and other like-minded souls. I don't believe he was there at any point during Mahler's lifetime. Perhaps the playwright has altered the timeline a bit in service of the drama.

James

[Damfino]

It has been awhile since I read a couple of biographies of Stalin and his Terror. Stalin's history during the time of the play is rather fuzzy. He didn't like facts of his early life to be known and suppressed them. Until he came to power, a lot of people didn't take much notice of him at all. One communist of the period described him as "just a grey blob". In many photos he's simply the guy standing just behind Lenin. Once Lenin started having his strokes, Stalin took power quite quickly, leaving people scratching their heads and wondering "who is this guy, and why haven't I noticed him before (and why am I being arrested?)?"

Also, I don't think he had adopted the name of Stalin until around the time of the revolution. I think he was still using his real name of Josef Djhugashvili. He later started calling himself Koba (after a Russian folk-tale character), then Koba-Stalin, and finally Josef Stalin.

This play sounds like a 1970's play by Tom Stoppard called Travesties, which featured an Englishman remeniscing about living in Zurich at the same time as James Joyce, Lenin and Dadaist Tristan Tzara.