ARTICLE
Interview with Simon Palomares (1994)
Playing Salvador Dali in Hysteria, by Terry Johnson
Melbourne Theatre Company
Article by Kate Herbert for The Melbourne Times
This article published after June 21, 1994
"Salvador Dali is not just another ethnic," says
Simon Palomares. "He's Spanish." Palomares, a Spanish-Australian who
has recently been living between Madrid and Melbourne, plays the provocative
master of surrealism in an upcoming Melbourne Theatre Company production of
Terry Johnston's Hysteria.
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| Simon Palomares as Dali in Hysteria, MTC, 1994 |
Hysteria is not a play about the mad Spaniard (I mean Dali,
not Palomares), but Dali's meeting with psychoanalyst and patron saint of the
surrealists, Sigmund Freud. Dali, says Palomares, visited Vienna three times to
meet his idol.
"While he (Dali) was sitting in a cafe eating snails he
heard that Freud had gone to London and when he walked into the house in
Hampstead, the first thing he saw was a trail of snails leading to the
bicycle." Very surreal and spooky according to Dali.
Rebecca S. was a famous case history of Freud's. In the
play, Jessica, the daughter of Rebecca S, invades Freud's study late one wet
London night to confront him about his incorrect diagnosis and treatment of her
mother as an hysteric and victim of incest. Rebecca's mental deteriorated
severely after treatment and her memories of abuse by her father were revealed
to be inaccurate.
Johnston is reflecting the recent world-wide outcry, started
in the US, against therapists who have uncovered, through hypnosis, deep
memories of incest in disturbed patients. Sceptics suggest that such memory may
be manufactured and therefore inaccurate. The argument rages still about
therapists whose every client has the same memories of abuse. The problem
arises when the experience of all incest victims is doubted.
Letters from Freud denouncing his own theory, were found in
a closet in his Hampstead home after his death. They suggested that the
"hysterics" may fantasise about fathers' attentions and therefore
manufacture memories. These letters were used in a book by a former member of
the Freudian Foundation and Terry Johnston has used Freud's last-ditch
recanting as the basis of his narrative.
"Freud thought the surrealists were a pack of
wankers.... He didn't believe you could put the subconscious on canvas."
The meeting between the two masters was ten minutes only, but Freud, who was
dying with mouth and throat cancer, was quite taken with Dali and allowed
himself to be sketched.
The title of the play has its origin in the Freudian theory
of hysteria. Freud posited that hysteria, an exclusively female condition
according to him, was a direct result of childhood sexual abuse by the girl's
father. "When Freud's theories came out pre-World War II, he was a Jew in
Vienna suggesting that "the proper men of society were molesting their
daughters."
He took a rapid about face when his sister, Anna, manifested
symptoms of hysteria in later life and he was confronted with the impossibility
of his own father's misdeeds.
Johnston is walking on fragile ice here, but his intention
is not to write a dark tragic expose' on Freud's misdemeanours. The play dances
blithely between broad comedy and dark surrealistic drama and the one feeds and
highlights the other.
"There are parts of the play that are pure farce,"
says Palomares. "Doors slamming, knocking, 'Ooh, somebody's coming',
getting caught in embarrassing positions. You lull the audience into a sense of
'this is what we're watching', then suddenly you start talking about child
molestation and incest." Comedy and tragedy are all too close in our
lives.
In Spain, he made a French-Spanish feature film, ˜Shooting
Elizabeth, with Jeff Goldblum and Mimi Rogers. He played an Anglo-Saxon
American. Ironically, in Spain, he always auditions for the British and
American roles.
He went back to Madrid recently to write a pilot for a
comedy show. The Spanish television comedy scene is evidently differs little
from ours. "TV executives are the same everywhere. They think they know
what people want to watch."
Given the comic elements of the script, it is obvious why
director, Simon Phillips, has cast Palomares as Dali. He has worked in comedy for
many years and was one of the original team which created Acropolis Now.
He has recently been in an ABC documentary about the recent
development of ethnic humour in Australia, but he had reservations about being
involved. "I'm sick of the subject. It doesn't mean every time you do a
character who is not Australian or Anglo-Saxon that you are saying anything
about Australian ethnicity."
He has separated himself from the image of "wog
comic" he had a few years ago, by living overseas and doing more theatre
and film work. It takes courage and creative ambition to leave such a lucrative
and popular area in an industry riddle with unemployment and Palomares has gone
ahead in leaps and bounds.
Choosing Dali as a character in a play about Freud is not
based exclusively on his artwork and public persona. Dali was a
psychotherapist's dream case; a veritable can of psychological worms. His parents, rather morbidly, named him after
a sibling who died at 18 months and the second young Salvador was regularly
taken to visit a grave bearing his own name. No wonder he was a wacko!
He had been molested by a male teacher as a child. "He
had a problem with intimacy," says Palomares. "Although he was a very
sexually active person he never touched." In the 60's he became the guru
of the hippies who lives near his Spanish home. He invited young people to his
studio for orgies. "He would stand behind his canvas and masturbate rather
than paint" - a charming mentor for the young.
Palomares says that if he played Dali as Dali he would be
"too over-the-top" because, let's face it, the guy came across as
pretty potty. Ironically, Palomares met, in Spain, people who knew Dali and who
described him as " a very average person. But as soon as the camera went
on or the tape recorder went on the he was off flying." He made himself a
phenomenon. He could turn "Dali" on and off at will. "He and Gala had one of the best
publicity stunts of this century," quips Palomares.
He actively pursued the role of Dali in Hysteria. "This is not playing another ethnic. I'm
playing a character. It's got nothing to do with us in Australia. Salvador Dali
is not ethnic. He's Spanish." In fact, he is the quintessential Spaniard.
Palomares believes that Dali is almost single-handedly responsible for the
Spanish stereotype: the sweeping moustachios, the beret, the arrogance and bravado,
the sexually overt behaviour.
"Dali represents ego (in the play). Even when Freud
tells Dali his work is rubbish, Dali says 'The world's a whore and you sell it
shit.' "
He also epitomises animal impulse and vanity. "When
there's a naked woman in the closet, Dali is the one who walks straight
in." In fact, all the characters in the play are manifestations of
Freudian theory. Jessica is the instinct, Freud's Id. Yahuda, Freud's doctor in
the play, is a composite character based on a real Rabbi and Freud's physician,
represents the social conscience, the Superego.
After reading Dali's biography, Palomares is convinced that
Dali and Gala "were ruthless with people they met. They only talked to the
people who would benefit them."
Dali was a big old show-off, a shameless self-promoter, a
marketing expert before it became fashionable, and a relentless opportunist.
With his formidable talent and personality, he is the ultimate representation
of Ego in 20th century culture.
KATE HERBERT
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