Taproot Theatre imagines if Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis came to tea

by | Mar 8, 2012

Just imagine the conversation that Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis could have if they’d ever met. That’s what Taproot Theatre is doing in its latest production, “Freud’s Last Session,” running March 23 through April 21.
“Freud’s Last Session” was written by Mark St. Germain.  The play opened in New York in July 2010, is currently the longest running Off-Broadway show this season, and won the 2011 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Play.

Matt Shimkus as C.S. Lewis and Nolan Palmer as Sigmund Freud. Photo by Erik Stuhaug.
Taproot’s production is directed by Producing Artistic Director Scott Nolte, and stars Nolan Palmer as Sigmund Freud and Matt Shimkus as C.S. Lewis.

Science and religion, body and soul, reality and fantasy, nothing is off limits in the award winning play, Freud’s Last Session, making its West Coast premiere at Taproot Theatre this March. Air raid sirens sound overhead, C.S. Lewis is a young and rising academic star and Sigmund Freud has invited him for tea. What could possibly come next?
Mark St. Germain’s distinguished new play that Entertainment Weekly called, “… spirited, witty and eminently engaging” was suggested by the bestselling book The Question of God by Armand Nicholi, Jr., a Harvard professor who for over thirty-five years has taught a course comparing the writings, biographies and philosophies of both Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis.
C.S. Lewis was a Christian apologist who wrote books such as The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and a staunch advocate for the atheist worldview. Even though it is unlikely Freud and Lewis ever met, the conversation presented is historically and ideologically sound, musing about issues that were important to Freud and Lewis and remain important today.

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