In the late 50s, at the request of the American director John Houston, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the scenario for a film about none other than Sigmund Freud. Sartre delved so deeply into the subject that he produced a script good for seven hours of film. Huston proceeded to condense the many hundreds of pages into a two-hour-long film, at which point Sartre had his name removed from the credits. This challenging script has remained untouched since then.
    
More than anyone, Freud determined 20th century thinking about what it means to be a human being. Literature, film and theatre were deeply influenced by him. But how did Freud arrive at his theories? Sartre portrays the young psychiatrist as a tormented personality who discovered psychoanalysis almost against his will. Excellent material for Ivo van Hove, who is the first to stage this voluminous script by Sartre in its entirety. Marie Vinck, Stef Aerts and Thomas Verstraeten did the adaptation. Along with Matteo Simoni, Marie Vinck and Stef Aerts have joined up with the Amsterdam ITA ensemble for this project, playing three of the many characters who spin a web of discussion and confrontation around Freud.