Freud's Last Session Study Guide

A R D E N T H E AT R E C O M PA N Y P R E S E N TS

FREUD’S LAST SESSION

By Mark St. Germain

Directed by Ian Merrill Peakes

A SUPPLEMENTARY STUDY GUIDE Prepared by Nile Arena

TABLE OF (DIS)CONTENTS Play Synopsis..................................................2 Playwright Mark St. Germain..................................3 Sigmund Freud ..................................................... ...4 C. S. Lewis ................................................................5 The Trilemma: Mad, Bad, or Messiah?......................6 London During the Blitz......................................7-8 Glossary of Terms...............................................9-10 Meet the Cast...................................................11-12 Creating Freud’s Office....................................13-14 Interview with Properties Master Chris Haig.......15-16 Discussion Questions.............................................17 Further Reading.......................................................18 1.

David Howey and Todd Scofield

Play Synopsis: When Professor Lewis Met Doctor Freud Caution: Spoilers Herein!

C.S. Lewis arrives at the London office of Sigmund Freud.

The father of psychiatry is living in England under the care of his wife and daughter after fleeing Vienna and suffering the agonizing symptoms of inoperable cancer. Freud reveals he has invited the young Oxford professor to his office upon learning Lewis satirized him in the novel, Pilgrim’s Regress.

Lewis admits he read Freud’s books avidly as a student at Oxford, but wholeheartedly disagrees with his worldview. An impromptu debate begins between the two men on the existence of God and the purpose of religion in modern society. Freud receives a phone call from his daughter, Anna, that Prime Minister Chamberlin is speaking on the radio. The broadcast confirms that England is at war with Germany. Freud desrcibes the terror of fleeing the Nazis in Austria the year prior. Lewis explains that he was reluctant to convert to Christianity after growing up angry at an absent god. As he describes his epiphany, an air-raid siren goes off. Both men panic and prepare to put on gas masks and seek shelter from an apparent German attack when the radio announces the siren was only a false alarm. The air raid reminds Lewis of his experiences in the trenches during World War I. He then continues to explain that his conversion to Christianity was influencd, in part, by a novel by G.K. Chesterton Talks with Tolkien. Freud calls his physician because of the agony in his mouth. Lewis asserts that Christ must have been the son of God and explains his philosophy. Freud argues his stance as an atheist. He’s fascinated by the existence of religion, citing the innumerable horrors of human existence as proof that there is no logic in a benevolent supreme being. He continues by arguing that the doctrines of Christianity are unrealistic and limit mankind to a childlike state of blissful ignorance.

Lewis admires Freud’s collection of ancient statutes and artifacts. Lewis questions why a nonbeliever would surround himself with sacred objects. Freud insists he is fascinated with them as a collector, nothing more, and the two return to their arguement. Freud confides in Lewis that he intends to commit suicide with the assistance of his doctor before he succumbs to further agonies of oral cancer. The discussion turns to sexuality and each man challenges the other on the importance of sex. For Freud, sex is synonymous with pleasure. For Lewis, sex is inferior to the joy of faith. Freud grills Lewis on the ambiguous nature of his living arrangement with Mrs. Jane Moore and Lewis in turn implies Freud’s daughter Anna may be infatuated with him. Freud turns on the radio, which announces the Polish air force has been destroyed by the Luftwaffe. The conversation returns to death, with Lewis arguing that in the moment of the air raid siren Freud still had a survival instinct. As the arguement intensifies Freud begins to bleed from his mouth and orders Lewis to remove his prosthesis. Exhausted from the pain, Freud lies down and Lewis prepares to depart for the train station. Before he goes, he apologizes for not being able to define God better. Freud tells Lewis his joke about the village atheist and the pastor. C.S. Lewis leaves and Freud listens to King George’s speech broadcast on the radio. After the speech, instead of turning off the radio, Freud leaves it on and listens to the music.

2.

Playwright Mark St. Germain

Mark St. Germain

Mark St. Germain has written the plays Camping with Henry and Tom (Outer Critics Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award), Out of Gas on Lover’s Leap, and Forgiving Typhoid Mary, Ears on a Beatle, and The God Committee. With Randy Courts, he has written the musicals The Gifts of the Magi, Johnny Pye and The Foolkiller, winner of an AT&T “New Plays For The Nineties Award,” both produced at the Lamb’s Theater, New York City. Jack’s Holiday was produced at Playwrights Horizons.

Mark’s musical Stand by Your Man: The Tammy Wymette Story was created for Nashville’s Ryman Theater and toured nationally. He co-wrote the libretto for Charles Strouse’s American Tragedy. Mark co-wrote the screenplay for Carroll Ballard’s film, Duma. Television credits include Writer and Creative Consultant for The Cosby Show, Life Stories, and Dick Wolf’s Crime and Punishment. Mark wrote the children’s book Three Cups, illustrated by April Willy.

He is an alumnus of New Dramatists, where he was given the Joe A. Callaway Award. Mark is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writer’s Guild East, and a Board Member of the Barrington Stage Company where a stage was recently named in his honor. He was awarded the “New Voices In American Theatre” award at the William Inge Theatre Festival. Playbill has hailed him as “America’s premier biographical playwright”. Recent and upcoming works include, Dr. Ruth: All the Way about sex therapist and author Dr. Ruth Westheimer, as well as Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah- a commission from the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, centered on the complicated relationship between modernist writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

3.

David Howey and Todd Scofield

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmunde Schlomo Freud (1856-1939) was born in the town of Príbor in the Austrian Empire (now part of the Czech Republic) to working-class parents. After studying in Vienna, Austria, Freud began his career as a neurologist specializing in nervous disorders where he began to develop many of his theories, including the Oedipus complex and the “talking cure” technique. Freud spent most of his life in Vienna before ultimately fleeing to England to evade the Nazis. Regarded as the founder psychoanalysis, Freud endures today as an icon of psychology as well as a formidable theorist. Though Freud’s theories remain a source of controversy, his influence on clinical psychology, popular culture, scholarship, and critical analysis at large is omnipresent. His many works include The Ego and the Id; An Outline of Psycho-Analysis; Inhibitions; Symptoms and Anxiety; Civilization and Its Discontent, and Moses and Monotheism.

David Howey

4.

C.S. Lewis

C.S. LEWIS

Todd Scofield

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) is remembered for both his fiction writing, including the enduring fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters and his essays on Christianity and personal memoirs Surprised By Joy and The Problem of Pain. During World War I Lewis fought in the British Infantry and was wounded during trench warfare in 1918.

While a lectuter at Oxford, Lewis converted to Christianity, inspired by several long conversations with friends J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson and the writings of British author G.K. Chesterton.

Lewis considered himself an orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that the uninspired sermons and saccharine hymns of church put him off. For many years he taught in the medieval studies department at his alma mater Oxford University until being elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University, a position he would hold until his retirement.Today Lewis is considered the father of modern Christian Apologetics; his works continue to be read and taught as cornerstones of fantasy literature and Christian theology.

5.

THE TRILEMMA MAD, BAD, OR MESSIAH?

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

~ Criticism of the “Trilemma” Arguement ~ We are often asked to accept Christ as divine because he claimed to be so--and the familiar argument is pressed: ‘A man who goes around claiming to be God must either be God--or else he is a madman or a charlatan’ ... And, of course, it is not easy to read the Gospel story and to dismiss Jesus as either mad or bad. Therefore, the conclusion runs, he must be God. I am not happy about this argument. None of the disciples in the Gospels acknowledged Jesus because he claimed to be God, and the Apostles never went out saying, ‘This man claimed to be God, therefore you must believe in him.’

-John A.T. Robinson, Honest to God All this rules out the once popular form of apologetic which argues that someone claiming to be God must be either mad, or bad, or God. With the recognition that Jesus did not think of himself in this way christological discussion has moved from the once supposedly firm rock of Jesus’ own claim to the much less certain ground of the church’s subsequent attempts to formulate the meaning of his life.

-John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age

6.

LONDON DURING THE BLITZ

During WWII Germany levied multiple sustained attacks against The United Kingdom.

Between September 7th, 1940 and May 16th, 1941 there were major raids (attacks in which more than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped) on 16 British cities; the capital, London, was attacked 71 times, Birmingham, Liverpool and Plymouth eight times, Bristol six, Glasgow five, Southampton four, Portsmouth three, and at least one large raid on eight other cities. London was bombed by the Luftwaffe, the aerial warfare branch of the German army, for fifty-seven consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London. Ports and industrial centers outside London were also heavily attacked. The major Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was the most heavily bombed city outside London, suffering nearly 4,000 dead. Other ports including Bristol, Cardiff, Hull, Plymouth, Southampton, and Swansea were also targeted, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow and Manchester. Birmingham and Coventry were heavily targeted because of the Spitfire and tank factories in Birmingham and the many munitions factories in Coventry. The city centre of Coventry was almost destroyed.

In early November, Luftwaffe chief Herman Göring ordered that the air offensive against cities, industries, and ports had to be conducted entirely under cover of darkness. The new strategy was showcased by a massive attack on Coventry on November 14th 1940 which destroyed much of the city, including all but the spires of St Michael’s Cathedral and the Grey Friars’ Church. Attacks on Birmingham, Southampton, Bristol, Plymouth, and Liverpool followed, but they proved less effective.

On December twenty-ninth, a major raid on London destroyed much of the City, but poor winter weather then lead to a drop in attacks until March. After the winter, from March until May of 1941, London saw another series of heavy attacks, culminating in a very damaging raid on May 10th 1941. The Blitz ended on May 16th, when most of the Luftwaffe was re-assigned east for the imminent invasion of Russia.

The bombing did not achieve its intended goals of demoralizing the British into surrender or significantly damaging their war economy. The eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production, and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The Blitz did not facilitate Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of Britain.

By May, 1941 the threat of an invasion of Britain had passed, and Hitler’s attention had turned to Operation Barbarossa in the East.

In comparison to the Allied bombing campaign against Germany, the Blitz resulted in relatively few casualties; the British bombing of Hamburg alone inflicted about 42,000 civilian casualties.

-Source: www.bbc.co.uk 7.

RECENTLY UNEARTHED PHOTOS OF THE DEVASTATION IN LONDON, CIRCA 1940.

8.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS Air Raid: Strategic bombing attack from an aircraft; during WWII these were often directed at regions of civilian population as well as military targets with the intent of dismantling an entire nation-state.

Martha Bernays: Wife of Sigmund Freud, survived him after his death, passing away in 1951.

BBC: The British Broadcasting Company. During WWII the English depended on the radio for news about evacuations, air strikes, and activity on the front.

Neville Chamberlin: Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1937-1940 known for the Appeasement Plan which drew increasing criticism after Munich conference with Germany assured “peace in our time” rather than the path to war which rapidly followed Germany’s invasion of Poland. Resigned on May 10th, 1940.

Invasion of Poland: German troops invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939.

France and Great Britain responded through a declaration of war.

Inklings: Group of writers and academics at Oxford who shared enthusiasm for fantasy narratives. The group included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Neville Coghill.

Charles Darwin: The nineteenth-cenutry English naturalist whose evolutionary theory proposed all animals shared common ancestry. The Darwinian theory of evolution by means of natural selection drew controversy at the time of publication and was a major influence on 19th and 20th century medicine.

Jane Moore: Mother of Lewis’ friend Edward “Paddy” Moore who was killed in the first world war. Lewis carried a deep affection for Mrs. Moore and shared a complicated relationship with the older woman. Biographers and scholars still contend over whether the two were in fact lovers.

King George VI: King of England from 1936 until his death in 1952. Regularly addressed the public through BBC radio broadcasts and remained in London during German air raids.

Luftwaffe: Aerial warfare branch of the German army, led by Herman Goring during WWII until Nazi Germany’s defeat.

John Milton: English poet in the 17th century. A fugitive during the Restoration, Milton was blind when he composed his magnum opus Paradise Lost, dictating the verse to his three daughters to transcribe.

9.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS Munich Agreement: Result of the Munich conference which annexed teritories around Czechoslovakia’s borders to Nazi Germany. Czechoslovakia had little say in the matter, and in March, 1937 the Germans invaded the remainder of the country.

Oedipus Complex: Taking its name from the Greek myth of Oedipus; a term coined by Freud to describe the stage in development when boys see themselves in competition with the father for the affections of the mother. First defined in Freud’s “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy”.

Oral Cancer: Characterized by the growth of cancerous cells in the mouth and often associated with cancers of the cavity located behind the tonsils and the back of the throat (oropharyngeal cancer). Smoking and use of tobacco products is a high risk factor and found in 75% of cases. Oral cancers often spread into the jaw and may occur simultaneously with cancers of the larynx, esophagus, or lungs.

Pilgrim’s Regress: Lewis’ first published novel, whioch follows a character on the path of Christian Enlightenment. Its title is a reference to “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan, a major seventeenth century work of Christian literature.

Prosthesis: an artificial device that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect.

Somerset Light Infantry: A regiment of the British Army dating back to 1685, Known today as The Rifles.

Third Reich: Germany as it was known under the totalitarian rule of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, led by Adolf Hitler.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Oxford professor and fantasy author, who is credited in part with converting C.S. Lewis to Christianity. Today he is best known for the bestselling Lord of the Rings trilogy and its precursor The Hobbit.

Village Atheist: Village Atheist: a solitary vocal atheist in a community made up of devoted and religious believers; a person who is aggressive and unwavering in their opinions, in the face of any possible opposition.

10.

MEET THE CAST Todd Scofield

Shakespeare Theatre: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cymbeline, Taming of the Shrew, Imaginary Invalid, Twelfth Night, Way of the World, Design for Living, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Henry IV Part 1, and Henry IV Part 2. Folger Theatre: Othello, Cyrano, Henry VIII, Caliban in The Tempest, King Lear, Measure for Measure. Round House Theatre: Double Indemnity, Tabletop. Kennedy Center: Mister Roberts. Ford’s Theatre: A Christmas Carol. Theatre J: Bal Masque (world premiere by Richard Greenberg). Regional: 1999 – 2001 and 2006 seasons at North Carolina Shakespeare Festival: roles include Mercutio, Speed, Tranio, Don Armado, also Three Sisters and The Comedy of Errors. Shenandoah, Hamlet and The Devil’s Dream at Barter Theatre. The Misanthrope at Charlotte Repertory. All’s Well That Ends Well with PlayMakers. Television: The Wire (recurring role, Seasons 3 & 5).

David Howey

David Howey is Head of the Acting Program at the Brind School of Theatre in the University of the Arts.

He was an actor in England for 30 years working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre Company, in London’s West End and in innumerable TV series and films. He has appeared on Broadway twice and performed in Shakespeare across the USA. He has acted with the Walnut Street Theatre, Bristol Riverside, 1812 Productions, Interact, Simpatico, Lantern, Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Wilma Theater and in The Underpants, Loot, History Boys and August: Osage County at the Arden.

It’s good to be back.

11.

The Cast in Rehearsals

Grudge Match: Ian Merrill Peakes directs the first rehearsal of the mental sparring match.

Actors Howey and Scoflield on the first day of Freud rehearsal.

First sessions: Director Ian Merrill Peakes and sound designer Jorge Cousineau in rehearsal.

12.

CREATING FREUD’S OFFICE:

Photos of our set, Designed by David Gordon Set Designer, David Gordon, and Director, Ian Merrill Peakes wanted to meticulously re-create Sigmund Freud’s real-life office. Here are photos of our set along with research photos of Freud’s study. What similarities do you see?

This is an early rendering of the set done by David Gordon to help the Production Team visualize what the final set would look like.

A photo of the final set of our production of Freud’s Last Session

13.

CREATING FREUD’S OFFICE: Photos of Freud’s REAL LIFE Office

Image from Freud’s Estate

Image from Freud’s Estate

14.

NIGHT AND DAY AT THE PENN MUSEUM: An Interview with Properties Master Chris Haig

In order to help re-create Freud’s study, Properties Master Chris Haig had his job cut out for him. Luckily, the Penn Museum was able to lend a helping hand. In this interview, Chris discusses the partnership with the Penn Museum and how it helped him with his job on this show.

Question: How did the Penn Museum end up lending artifacts to the production?

Chris: Freud had over 2000 antiquities in his collection, much in storage, but many in display cases and scattered about his study. During a staff meeting in August, I let everyone know that I was on the hunt for artifacts for the set. Leigh Goldenberg, the Arden’s PR person, is friends with the PR person at the Penn Museum and thought they might be willing to loan us some things for the show. Leigh set up a meeting and the museum offered us 18 replicas from their vast collection. A few weeks before opening we picked up the donated items from the museum and added them to the set.

Question: Was it important for you to be faithful to photos of Freud’s London office while working this production? How differently do you prepare for a show set in a specific time/place in history?

Chris: Director Ian Peakes and set designer David Gordon decidedly very early on in the process that they wanted to recreate Freud’s London study, where the play takes place, as accurately and as detailed as possible. So it was not only important, it was crucial for me to rely on photographs of the actual location.

Since Freud’s study is now The Freud Museum it is kept in exactly the same arrangement as when Freud worked there. There are two wonderful books describing in great detail the artifacts, artwork, furniture and décor inside Freud’s home and office. These were critical to our work. We also contacted the curator of the Freud Museum for more detailed information and our Costume Designer, Katherine Fritz, actually had the chance to visit the museum in September and came back with wonderfully detailed and close up photos from the room. So we had a plethora of reference materials to work from while creating our set.

Having the play set in a real place and time that actually existed has its benefits and challenges. A benefit is that from day one we knew exactly what we were looking for to recreate the study. We knew we needed a desk, an analyst’s couch, several chairs, tons of books and artifacts and various rugs and curtains. The challenge is the same thing: finding those exact things is hard! We knew what we needed, we just needed to find it. A lot more research went into this production because we had to get it just right. The carpet, for example, that lays over the infamous couch is so specific that we couldn’t settle for one that wasn’t just right. We took a few liberties with the arrangement of furniture to accommodate the playing space, but for the most part, the audience will be entering into an almost exact replica of his office.

Freud’s desk chair

15.

NIGHT AND DAY AT THE PENN MUSEUM: An Interview with Properties Master Chris Haig

Chris examines artifacts at the Penn Museum

Question: Looking at the Penn Museum’s collections must have been overwhelming; how did you select certain artifacts?

Chris: We were very lucky as the Penn Museum hosted a traveling exhibition of some of Freud’s artifacts several years ago and so the museum staff and research specialist had a working knowledge of what was in his collection. When we arrived for our initial meeting, they had already pulled a number of items from their collection that were appropriate to the type of artifacts Freud collected. He only collected items from Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Far East civilizations so it was easy to start in those sections and find items from there that fit into our display cases.

Question: How many of the props in this production did you create and how many are borrowed from the museum?

Chris: There are over 200 artifacts on the stage of Freud’s Last Session at the Arden. Of those, 18 artifacts are from the Penn Museum. The largest bulk of the remaining artifacts were donated by members of the Arden’s Sylvan Society. During the staff meeting when I asked for help, our Development Director, Angela DuRoss, suggested asking our donors if they would be interested in loaning items to Freud’s collection. We got an amazing response and eventually 5 Sylvan members (Andrea Missias, David Hackney, Jeanne Fisher, Nancy Burd, and Steve & Beth Prusky) loaned over 100 items from their personal collections. We could not have filled the room up without their generosity and faith in the company. The rest were bought at flea markets, online and created by myself, the production interns, Alyssa Velazquez and Liz Nugent, and several Arden Professional Apprentices in the prop shop.

Question: Finally, do you have a favorite prop in the show (real and/or built)?

Chris: I’d say my favorite prop in the show is Freud’s desk chair. It is a recreation of the original which was custom built specifically for Freud. He had a habit of sitting in armchairs with his legs swung over the arms while he read. His desk chair was designed to make this position more comfortable for him. We were fortunate that the Pittsburgh Public Theatre had produced this show last season and had created a replica of the chair for their production which we were able to rent for our run. It is such a unique piece of furniture and brings us so much farther into the world of Freud’s study.

An Antiquity from Freud’s Estate

16.

1. Do Freud or Lewis reveal a confirmation of bias in their arguements?

If so, when?

2. Is C.S. Lewis correct in his estimation of science; does it in fact leave no room for faith?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

3. Do you think both men are afraid of being wrong?

4. Are both Lewis and Freud believers? Why or why not?

5. Do you think Freud actually has read Pilgrim’s Regress?

6. Why is Freud critical of myths and fantasies used to illustrate religious ideals?

7. What do you make of the final moment when Freud turns the radio back on and listens to the music? Is it a moment of grace?

8. Lewis says that “history is filled with monsters. And yet somehow we survive.” Do you argee that historically good does triumph over evil?

9. Both characters argue passionately that their viewpoint is not only right, but the true way of the world at large. Were there times during the play when you agreed with one character but then changed your mind?

When did this occur?

10. Is Lewis right when he says there is “no greater” sin than suicide?

Under the circumstances of Freud’s extreme suffering, do you think he is justified?

11. What is Lewis suggesting when he asks Freud so many questions about his daughter Anna?

12. Before Lewis leaves, Freud tells him a joke about a pastor and an atheist insurance salesman. How is the joke a metaphor for the play?

13. When Lewis exits, has his faith been shaken?

17.

Dramas of Science versus Faith:

Buchanan Dying, John Updike Fake, Eric Simonson Hysteria, Terry Johnson Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee The Sunset Limited, Cormac McCarthy The Talking Cure, Christopher Hampton

Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, George Sayer Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

A Life for Our Times by Peter Gay Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision by Louis Berger

On C.S. Lewis:

Illustration of Freud composing The Ego and the Id by Ralph Steadman

FURTHER READING

On Sigmund Freud:

18.

Photos of David Howey and Todd Scofield from Freud’s Last Session.

All production photos taken by Mark Garvin.