Riveting the audience: “Freud’s Last Session” at Barrington Stage

David Begelman

Theater Critic

begelman33@gmail.com

 

You could have fooled me. What should anyone expect about a show that is a dialogue between the professed atheist, Sigmund Freud, and an ardent believer, C. S. Lewis, author of “Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Screwtape Letters”? While the two have been lionized as spokespersons for disparate world-views, shouldn’t a drama based upon their intellectual sparring be a recipe for talky, listless dialogue? Shouldn’t it produce a prolonged yawn? Dead wrong.

“Freud’s Last Session,” the one-act drama authored by Mark St. Germain, is about as lively and stirring a show for two actors as you’re likely to see these days. And not only because of the superb portrayals by Martin Rayner (Sigmund Freud) and Mark H. Dold (C. S. Lewis). The play, produced a second time at Barrington Stage, and headed soon for new life at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theatre in New York City, is simply one gem of a production.

Its appeal has virtually nothing to do with the loopy defenses of religion and disbelief fashioned by its principal characters. After all, Freud’s insistence that religious belief stems from a hankering for a benevolent father figure has no obvious relevance for whether God exists or not. (Freud was often guilty of confusing the truth or falsity of a belief with the motivational reasons for adopting it).

Nor does Lewis’s recitation of personal religious experience or conviction shed any philosophical light on the same issue. The compelling ingredient in the play is the way these two go at each other with passion, conviction, humor, and, although it is sometimes barely visible, mutual respect camouflaged by a veil of contentiousness.

Playwright St. Germain’s premise, that a dialogue between Freud and Lewis might have occurred, is pure wish fulfillment. It is based upon an anecdote that Freud had  contact with an unnamed Oxford student during his last days. That this was C. S. Lewis is a fanciful guess, but probably wrong. Freud was by temperament intolerant of disagreement, and a joust with someone as far removed from his take on life as Lewis was probably not in the cards during his terminal and agonizing bout with oral cancer.

In exile in London from Nazi Germany, Freud’s had his personal physician administer a merciful overdose of morphine on September 23, 1939. In the play, C. S. Lewis admonishes Freud against taking such a step—on moral grounds. Freud’s eventual death signaled repudiation of the religion his visitor insisted had a claim on the way any of us should elect to go out.

Tyler Marchant’s direction of the show was close to flawless. Brian Prather’s scene design, with the famous carpet-covered couch of Freud’s, transported from its Viennese niche, breathed an air of verisimilitude in Freud’s realistically appointed study. Clifton Taylor’s amber-tinted lighting design did likewise.

The show is a must-see for anyone with an appetite for timeless controversies, gripping drama, and riveting performances by two consummate actors. For those of  alternative persuasion, see it anyway.

‘Freud’s Last Session’ runs until July 3 at Barrington Stage’s Stage 2, 36 Linden Street, Pittsfield, MA. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. There is an additional performance on Thursday, july1 at 4 p.m. Tickets are $15-$45, and may be purchased by calling the box office at 413-236-8888 or online at www.barringtonstageco.org.