Freud’s Last Session
Freud’s Last Session
By Mart St. Germain
Directed by Rick Stanley
Mad Cow Theatre, Orlando FL
St Augustine argues God exists because there can be truth greater than human reason. Pascal doubted, yet his knowledge of probability showed the cost of believing was less than the price of being wrong. And Monty Python slugged it out in a wresting ring, deciding God Exists two falls out of three. Freud and Lewis never examine these novel arguments, but slug it out between “I had a vision on the way to Oxford” vs. “So what’s with these Nazis?” The presentation was brilliant, even if I was never fired up to change my views on eternity.
In this fictitious dialog set on the eve of WW2, Sigmund Feud (Terry Wells) flees to England. Famous for the couch side interviews, he was a strident atheist and reflected the most modern intellectualism of the day. Lewis (Michael Lane) hung out with Tolkien and Dyson, knew his myths and histories, and survived the trenches of WW1 with a skeptical sheen on him that cracked one day on the train from London. In an instant he was converted back to the Christianity his mother taught him, and needed no human logic to defend himself or God.
The discussion is erudite and far reaching, although it explores no ideas you haven’t heard if you’re familiar with the faith vs. logic arguments. Lewis argues a sense of awe and an implicit morality that man often ignores, while Freud relies on brain structures and physics. As Poland falls and Freud’s jaw bleeds from the cancer, Lewis takes his leave. We have a polite discussion on the drive home, and if God exists, he smiles beneficently upon us. And if He doesn’t, the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics keep my transmission from falling out. Thus, there are still eternal questions I can’t answer but the world keeps spinning, and that is something.
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