Back on the Couch

In Just over an hour, playwright Mark St. Germain covers a lot of ground in Freud’s Last Session, currently playing at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater. We zip through mini-biographies of both Christian author C.S. Lewis (Mark H. Dold) and atheist sigmund Freud (Martin Rayner), a brief history of Freud’s innovations in psychology and a quick glance at the threat that Londoners lived under during World War II. But what the show ultimately amounts to is an hourplus debate about the existence of God.

 Inspired by speculation from Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr., in his book The Question of God, about an unidentified Oxford professor who visited the German therapist after Freud had immigrated to england, Freud’s Last Session offers a tantalizing premise: What if the devoutly religious Lewis (who converted rather suddenly to Christianity from atheism) engaged in a theological debate with the dying Freud? Unfortunately, even with two powerhouse intellects taking one another on, Freud’s Last Session eventually suffers from the fact that it’s about, well, the devoutly religious Lewis engaged in a theological debate with the dying Freud.

But until one’s eyes glaze over at two grown men pondering whether or not God exists (which seems to today’s ears a particularly 20th-century argument), Rayner and Dold’s performances manage to keep the play afloat. Both performers are greatly helped by St. Germain’s ingenious folding-in of biographical information in ways that don’t draw attention to the exposition (his devices include, among others, phone conversations and an unseen dog, of all things).

Rayner and Dold do manage to keep one’s interest from flagging entirely during the show’s duller patches. Dold, in particular, is an affable stage presence who nonetheless has an edginess about him that infuses the debates between Lewis and Freud with a wry comedy. And Rayner manages to convey, with a minimum of fuss, the latent fears of a dying man who is watching as the world falls apart around him. When an air raid siren blares, the fear on his face is that of a man who may meet his imminent death in a very different way than the one he had assumed.

Director Tyler Merchant has also handled the sometimes-melodramatic turns the play takes with aplomb, preventing the show from tipping into unintentional comedy. Freud’s false palate could easily have become an awkward gag, but Merchant rigorously keeps the moments when it comes into play from becoming black comedy.

In an era of fluff and needless revivals, Freud’s Last Session turns out to be a welcome adult addition, even when it begins to drag. Big Ideas aren’t fashionable anymore, but they’re always welcome (as Josh Logan’s Red proved on Broadway last season). In this play, at least, God exists in the details.

>> Freud’s last sessIon Open run, The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theatre, 5 W. 63rd St. (enter on W. 64th St. at Central Park West), 868-811- 4111; $65.