A Conversation You Want to Hear

It’s the ultimate intellectual showdown. Freud’s Last Session, a new play at Palm Beach Dramaworks, pits the Christian apologist and Narnia chronicler, C.S. Lewis, against the cancer-ridden, cigar-smoking father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, in an imagined bull session at Freud’s office in London on the day England enters WWII. The old Austrian cadger is nearing death, but retains his atheistic spunk, demanding of Lewis: “I want to learn why a man of your intellect, one who shared my convictions, could suddenly abandon truth and embrace an insidious lie” — the “insidious lie” being God. Freud doesn’t proceed to beat Lewis with his cane — there’s no action in this play, just discourse — and they never do resolve whether God exists. But it’s an epic tête-à-tête nonetheless, a must-see for fans of philosophical conversation.

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More About

• C.S. Lewis
• Sigmund Freud
• London (England)

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Freud’s Last Session performs at 8 p.m. Thursday, December 23, at Palm Beach Dramaworks (322 Banyan Blvd., West Palm Beach). It runs till February 6, 2011. Tickets cost $47. For more info, call 561-514-4042, or visit palmbeachdramaworks.org.
Thu., Dec. 23, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays-Sundays. Starts: Dec. 23. Continues through Feb. 6, 2010