Suzy Bell On show in Durban
Never has Jung been so playful, and yet so arresting. Last Tango in Heaven, produced by Durban’s pioneering Backlash Theatre Company, was written by that most underrated Pretoria playwright, Mario Scheiss. He wrote the play in four days and then, dramatically, on June 2, at the age of 64, he died.
But this warm, thoroughly down-to-earth Jungian dream analyst, who also wrote the chilling one-woman show, The Chosen One, was determined that this, his last play, would be staged at this year’s Grahamstown festival so that it “would not be exclusively pitched to members of the Jungian society”.
It’s a remarkable play about two women, Emma Jung (wife of Carl Jung) and Toni Wolff, (mistress of Jung) who meet in the afterlife to bitch and squabble, debating their soul state, the angst that swims with adultery, and so much more.
They indulge in sumptuous psychoanalysis that reaps wisdom from Goethe, Dante, Lao Tsu, Byron, Socrates and Kant. Actress Catherine Mace, goddess of the Durban stage, exudes a talent that only Helen Mirren’s wet dreams are made of. Mace is Toni, the ex-patient turned mistress, and Calli Denton plays Emma, the long-suffering wife.
The play, itself, is rich therapy for anyone grieving, whether for a beloved parent, or the man or woman in your life who slashed your heart in two by committing adultery.
The play unpeels a layer or two of consciousness on questions of reincarnation and soul status and offers some notion of where we possibly go when we die.
It also portrays a subconscious realm of space where we, perhaps, would take up no space, and where we, perhaps, are no longer slaves to time, nor mirrors. “There is nothing to reflect here, we are on the other side of the mirror,” explains Toni.
It’s also a place where, yes, you may very well bump into the last person you want to see in heaven or hell and have little choice but spit and hiss then perhaps make up. That’s if you want to move on. Scheiss also questions our desire to choose either a simple life or one of soul intoxication.
There are undoubtedly many layers to this dramatic piece of theatre. What fascinated the playwright, he admitted before his death, was the triangle between Emma, Toni and Carl. Scheiss was absolutely “horrified” to hear that the Jung heirs had burnt the letters between Jung and Wolff.
“Horrified because I had always hoped that one day they’d be available in print. Some may question why, but what must have been contained in the letters, between these two people who had explored the depths of their souls to such an extent, would have been of desperate importance for all who battle with the painful experience of adultery. For those in that situation, they probably would have opened a door to a profound level where healing could have been found.”
Scheiss is quick to add that Jung’s opus is unique, and no fictional figure could be invented whose work would justify what he asked of these two women. “His fate and work would have been very different if they had not played such an enormous part in his life. That is my justification for using these two historical women in this play.”
Last Tango in Heaven is a play that offers an intelligent slant, albeit Jungian based, that sparks a consciousness of where the dead folk go and how we will cope. What Scheiss offers is far more comforting than the disturbance of death.
The Chosen One and Last Tango in Heaven, produced by Backlash Theatre Company, are on the fringe at the Grahamstown festival