“FREUD’s Last Session’ was a best seller at box office when it first launched and became one of the longest running shows off Broadway. Limerick based Orchard Theatre Company has acquired the rights, opening November 17 in Cork before touring to Belltable Arts Centre on Wednesday 28, Thursday 9 for this 8pm show. It’s a two hander between Sigmund Freud (Pius McGrath) and the literary historian CS Lewis (David Collins), best known to this generation as author of the mythical Narnia books for children.
In the play, the great psychiatrist, aged 83 and ravaged by cancer, drops a letter to Lewis inviting him over.
The waltz between the two begins, “played out against Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s broadcast on the launch of World War 2. The year is 1939. 200,000 airmen had already been killed by the German army”. Director Simon Thompson sets the scene.
“Remember the Freud is old now and riddled with mouth cancer. He was forced to wear a plate that constantly abraded his mouth and was in pain. He invites CS Lewis over, one of the intellectuals of his day, and wants to understand how Lewis changed from being a non believer to being a devout Christian.
“What happens between the two is a sword fight of words. Freud’s sarcasm was famous but Lewis outwits him as the play unravels”.
Such a play is going to be a tough act to pull off – an audience’s sense of entitlement to the characters, the charisma and incisive power expected, the drum roll of war, and it has to be said, the youth of two actors in their 20s. McGrath and Collins are experienced theatre practitioners however, constantly at work. Thompson is keen to point out that the three of them are immersed in this Orchard production and a excerpt witnessed by this hack impressed with its authenticity.
‘Freuds Last Session’ opens at Belltable, November 28 and 29, 8pm, rolling on to to national tour into 2013.
