paper sculpture of Daniel Paul Schreber

William Shakeapeare - Dark Phoenix is the main title of my blog - however...

After re-reading 'Judge' a monologue about Daniel Paul Schreber, a piece I wrote and performed some years ago at the request of a forum of psychoanalysts gathered at New York University, I thought it might be fun to make a wire and paper model of Daniel Paul. You will find a little about him in another place in this blog, browse round. 

I began by using a length of wire bought from the local hardware shop and by bending and cutting and strapping it up with sticky tape I arrived at a basic maquette for the figure - I gave is extended heels so that they could be used to help the figure to stand up. 'Stand up and be a man’ – as the Nurse says in ‘Romeo and Juliet’.  Her double entendre has meaning in this case. Daniel Paul lived during an age when ‘standing up’ had only one purpose, that of making babies.  Masturbation was seen as a deeply shocking and dangerous practice – madness, blindness, and death following on. All upstanding great and good people claimed it so.  Freud had a thing or two to say about Daniel’s mental condition in its relationship to homosexuality, at the time, another much feared practice -- softening of the brain could follow, indeed, was the cause.  I wonder who were the most frightened – the men and/or the women?  Perhaps, in claiming these terrifying results that invariably followed on such practices men were able to frighten women into having lots of sex. 'Have some Madeira mi dear, and save me from a fate worse than death.'

To return to more sensible matters - for the models clothes, I use pastel paper.  I wonder how I shall create a face for Daniel, - he believed he was turning into the mother of superman, a process that would take thousands of years because to happen quicker would cause too much pain, what with stretching his pelvic girdle and all that...poor devil