Otho Eskin
The inception of Final Analysis was a historical incident. In 1910, Gustav Mahler sought out Sigmund Freud for psychoanalytic help. Mahler’s wife, Alma, was threatening to leave Mahler. In thinking about the tortured relationship between Gustav and Alma Mahler and the role of psychoanalysis, I was drawn to explore the world of Vienna on the eve of World War I: The hot-house, perfumed atmosphere in which the upper classes lived in the twilight of the Hapsburg Empire, against a background of crushing poverty of the masses, corruption, ethnic hatred and virulent anti-Semitism. Among those from this world who would go on to shape the 20th century — for better or worse— was Sigmund Freud, the man who created a new science of the mind; Gustav Mahler, one of the great composers and orchestral conductors of his era; Alma, his wife, who would have love affairs with the leading artists of Vienna, including the artist Oskar Kokoschka and the architect Walter Gropius; and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who dominated philosophical thought for half a century. And then there were the others: The dangerous outcasts and outlaws such as Joseph Stalin who passed through Vienna dreaming of world revolution and one disturbed young man who would come close to destroying the world.
Otho Eskin Biography
Otho Eskin’s plays include Act of God, Murder As A Fine Art, Season In Hell, Julie, and Duet. Duet has been performed in Washington, DC; New York, and several regional theaters in the US as well as Italy, Australia, Croatia, Slovenia, Russia, and Latvia. Otho Eskin served in the United States Foreign Service in Syria, Yugoslavia, Iceland, and Berlin. He was vice-chairman of the US delegation to the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea and was US representative to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
