history psychodrama

[Adam Blatner]

Item: Re Peter Lorre, who Moreno claims to have been in his first Theater of Spontaneity troupe:
. 
  From: Schwartz, A. (Ed.) (1992). Casablanca: as time goes by. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc.
     on Page 86, top: 
          If the Casablanca cast did indeed comprise thirty-four nationalities, half that number could be found on Peter Lorre's resume. The accomplished actor was born Laszlo Lowenstein, in Rosenberg, Hungary, in 1904, and turned to acting when his first career choice, psychiatry, failed to satisfy him. Although he had studied with the pioneers in the field, Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, he did not have the patience to listen to patients all day. In fact, with his manic sense of humor, Lorre found most of their revelations highly amusing.
       With a colleague, Lorre pioneered in the development of psychodrama, even mounting a theatrical producation based on his patients' acting out of their problems. The project failed, but Lorre found that he loved performing for an audience.... (the rest describes further acting jobs in Poland, Austria, etc., finally appearing in films in 1928... etc.

Adam's comment: So, I wonder who that colleague was?  (ha  ha)  Also, I am impressed with how history can unfold in surprising ways. I'm not ready to say how much of this distortion was the Hollywood journalist's version, or Lorre's own elaboration of what happened. I'm skeptical about the mid-part of the story, if for no other reason than the writer seems confused about the word, psychiatry---a medical profession (versus psychology or psychotherapy, which don't require an MD degree)... and I'm dubious about the rest. The other point, a theatrical production mounted based on his (Lorre's) patients' problems... at great divergence from Moreno's version of the origins of the Theatre of Spontaneity.



Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   
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