Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor –

Who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall in the room where two great intellectuals debate weighty issues such as the existence of God, love, sex and the meaning of life?

 Well, you can enjoy such an opportunity right now if you go to see “Freud’s Last Session” the current show presented by the Public Theater of San Antonio in its smaller space known as the Cellar Theater.
Written by Mark St. Germain and directed by prominent San Antonio director David Rinear, the play opened last weekend and continues through May 12.

The action is set in 1939 at the start of WWII. The two great men in this case are Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer/thinker who is probably best known for his book “Mere Christianity.” Though the two never met in real life, the playwright imagines them together, visiting and talking in Freud’s London flat. (To escape the spread of Nazism, Freud, a Jew, left Vienna and relocated to London late in life.)

“I had never seen the play before but after reading it, what I found interesting was that these guys who are strongly committed to their own points of view, can nevertheless engage in debate without becoming hostile to each other,” said Rinear. “We should try to reclaim that kind of civility and decorum today – rules of polite debate.

“I admire both men,” he added. “You may disagree with either one of them but you cannot ignore them. Both were extraordinarily influential.”

The pairing of Freud and C.S. Lewis originally happened in a course taught by psychiatrist Dr. Armand Nicholi, Jr., to his Harvard students in 1967. At first centered on Freud’s atheistic philosophy, the seminar spurred the students to demand a counterpoint, so the professor added the insights and theology of C.S. Lewis. In 2002, Nicholi published the book, “The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life,” which clearly was the inspiration for the play.

When the two men meet in the play, Freud is facing his own mortality while battling cancer and he will eventually commit suicide just a few weeks later to avoid further suffering. Still, in his interaction with his guest, he retains his sense of humor, and the play is often funny, said Rinear.

He worked with the actors – Wesley Deitrick as Freud and John Stillwaggon as Lewis – to keep the debate “vital” and avoid the lecturing tone. The director also praised sound designer Jesse Worley for finding the authentic historical recordings of King George VI and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s speeches from that time, which are partially included in the play to give a sense of the historical moment. A BBC announcer, however, is “played” by local actor Charles Michael Howard “who has the right kind of voice for that.”

Did the director root for either character to win the debate?

“No, I don’t think I did. Each has a cross to bear. Both are flawed, both are sympathetic characters,” he said.

“Freud’s Last Session” 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through May 12; San Pedro Playhouse, in San Pedro Park; for tickets call 210-733-7258 or go to www.thepublicsa.org