NY1 Theater Review: "Freud's Last Session"
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"Freud's Last Session" had its world premiere at the Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts last year, and it was so successful there it went on to become the longest-running show in the history of this award-winning theater in the Berkshires. Now the show has transferred to the off-Broadway stage. NY1’s Roma Torre filed the following review.To describe it, you might say "Freud's Last Session" is a little play about a couple of famous historical figures sitting around talking one day in 1939. Sounds awfully dry! But as written, staged and performed, it's really quite a gem.
Playwright Mark St. Germain took his inspiration for this play from a book describing a meeting between Sigmund Freud, the famed "Father of Psychoanalysis" and an unnamed Oxford professor, possibly the author C.S. Lewis, who went on to write the Narnia books.
The two men, both brilliant, were on opposite poles when it came to the question of God. Freud was an irascible atheist, on his last legs at this point - 83 years old and suffering from mouth cancer. Lewis was just 41, formerly an atheist himself but now happily converted to theism. His belief in God and Freud's rejection of faith in favor of science and reason is the basis of their conversation this one day in early September.
It probably still seems all too academic but that's the beauty of great theater like this. If produced correctly, you really don't need much more than honest characters and meaningful ideas.
This production has all that and a lot more. The setting, designed in impeccable detail, is Freud's London study on the eve of World War II. He invites Lewis to visit and it's not long before the two engage in a philosophical joust – thrusting and parrying on topics related to religion, war, sex and morality among much else.
Under Tyler Marchant's solid direction, the exchange is intellectually thrilling with both humor and insight in abundance. The characterizations – Martin Rayner playing the elderly Freud and Mark. H. Dold as Lewis, are fascinating. Every line feels absolutely organic and the performances liberally peppered with the kind of nuance that breathes life to history.
On the surface, one could argue “Freud's Last Session" is simply a lot of talk. Nothing really happened. But it's the kind of talk that transforms scholarly debate into enlightenment.