“Freud’s Last Session,” is a play about an imagined meeting between atheist Sigmund Freud and converted Christian C.S. Lewis. Their meeting takes place in 1939 on the day that Germany invaded Poland.
“One guy described this play like a very good cup of strong coffee because it’s really hard to sleep afterwards because you just want to talk,” Gary Varner said. “It gets you stimulated.”
Varner is a professor of Theatre at ACU. He’s directing the play that runs this weekend at FulksTheatre.
During the show, Freud and Lewis talk about love, death, sex and the idea of a God. Neither man wins or loses the debate, the dialogue is purely shared ideas.
“They like to set themselves up to be challenged and to challenge ideas,” Varner said. “Both of these characters like to spar intellectually.”
You may remember that ACUTheatre featured “Freud’s Last Session” in August of 2014 but this year’s production differs from the first in a couple ways, starting with the cast. Last year ACU student Jacob Alexander played C.S. Lewis. This year ACU alumni Mark Smith will play the Oxford professor.
Smith graduated from ACU in 1998 and now he’s the artistic director of The Legacy Theatre in Atlanta. This year the show is a joint production with The Legacy Theatre. After the show runs this weekend in Abilene, the set will be packed up and moved to Atlanta for performances at The Legacy.
ACU Theatre Professor Adam Hester plays Freud. Smith said it has been an honor and a privilege to work opposite of Hester, his mentor during college. Hester will be flying to Atlanta to perform with Smith at The Legacy.
This joint production may be the first of many between ACUTheatre and The Legacy Theatre. Smith wants his staff to visit ACUTheatre for workshops or perhaps have ACU playwrights and directors travel to Atlanta for more experience.
“I think that both environments have something unique within them and being able to merge those two, I would love to see something like that in the future,” Smith said. “Whether it’s just a sharing of talent, a sharing of personnel or if it’s mounting an original production of something that we decide to do together.”
The production will run tonight and Saturday night at 7:30 at FulksTheatre.
