Sigmund Freud’s living room is just how you imagine it. Strange ornaments litter antique furniture. Figurines of ancient gods pose between books. Lamplight falls on Persian rugs and dark wood. The room is poky, bohemian and heavy with academia. Out of the shadow of the hallway, the father of psychoanalysis emerges – a stereotype hunched and ailing. As he hobbles past his infamous couch, he is only metres from where I am hidden in the darkness of Paramatta’s Riverside Theatre.

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Directed by Hailey McQueen from Clock & Spiel Productions, Mark St. Germain’s play Freud’s Last Session imagines a conversation between Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis – author, philosopher and one of Christianity’s most reluctant and fruitful converts. Under the shadow of World War II, Freud battles oral cancer, frequently choking on blood and wrestling with a mouth prosthetic. In stark contrast, Lewis has the energy of a man in the early stages of intellectual acclaim and born-again conviction. The briefest consideration of the lives and works of these two men exposes their conflict.

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The men sit at opposite poles of almost every debate of concern to them. Theism and atheism, sexual modesty and sexual liberation, moral universalism and moral relativism; it could easily appear a battle between good and evil, each role assigned according to the audience’s allegiances. Wherever you sit on the spectrum of opinions, you are represented in the discussion. While it is likely that you will find an ally in one of the men, it is certain that you will find an adversary in the other. As a person of faith and fan of Lewis, I found myself naturally inclined towards his arguments, keen to observe his advocacy of my beliefs. I didn’t want to view Freud as the adversary – the word feels too divisive and opposed to the message of mercy I follow. Beyond that, this was a conversation, not a contest – I knew this, or at least I would have loved to believe this. The reality is though, if there was going to be a winner, I wanted it to be Lewis. I wanted my beliefs to come out on top.

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For an audience familiar with polarisation, this antagonism is not unfamiliar. Discussions feel increasingly fraught in the age of echo chambers and culture wars. Conversations can feel like a minefield. Any question of your opinion can feel like an ambush. The one who disagrees is an enemy. The prevalence of such warfare metaphors in describing conversations is enough to reveal the state of things.

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Against this background, the portrait of civility painted by Freud’s Last Session is pertinent. The men’s polarity is no hindrance to friendly banter, emotional honesty or admissions of ignorance. Both of them are stumped at some point. They don’t avoid their tensions. Things get heated. But aside from a light-hearted ‘gotcha’ or a genuine and sometimes frustrated desire to advocate an idea, the discussion reveals no air of superiority or determination to win in either thinker. There is only a desire to understand, and a will to champion what is right, and true.

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The contours of their encounter are carved by McQueen’s intentional blocking. As conversation flows toward the personal, the couch takes on a key role. Conscious of its connotations, the characters facetiously offer each other a seat as they discuss their relationships with their fathers, childhood memories and traumas. When the dialogue ebbs into God’s existence, the evils of humanity and life’s suffering, they sit on either side of the desk, which acts as a barrier between them and a reminder of Freud’s intellectual esteem. Their movement draws the eye across the intricate set, animating their dialogue with displays of opposition and intimacy.

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McQueen’s understanding of theatre as ‘live art’ enables both aesthetic appeal and historical accuracy in the set. The bohemian elegance of Freud’s living room is not only bolstered by her consciousness of balance and levels, but by research into his actual study in Vienna. Props have been carefully chosen and the actors’ engagement with them – examining the figurines of Egyptian gods, reclining on the couch, adjusting the volume of the radio – is deftly directed. Between words, the men pour each other glasses of water and pause to hear radio announcements of war. With McQueen’s direction emphasising honest humanity, these actions welcome audiences into the men’s lives, marrying the theatrical to the ordinary. Everyday hospitality foregrounds the philosophers as men: host and guest, common country residents affected by common political forces. To see Lewis walk in puffed, set down his backpack, and take a Freudian jab regarding his punctuality, is to see him humbled by the everyday.

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Solicitous, optimistic, compassionate, Lewis’s demeanour animates his philosophy. Yannick Lawry brings a sincerity and warmth to his character’s words, making his worldview both accessible and appealing to audiences. Poised in the early stages of his career, Lewis is the ultimate character foil for Freud who is nearing death. He could easily be labelled naïve – it seems clear Freud thinks so – were it not for his own ex-scepticism. Having worked through his own doubts, Lewis has answers for many of Freud’s objections to God’s existence. He speaks of the unlikelihood of Jesus being merely a lunatic or a liar and points to the historical reliability of the gospels. He advocates for the core truths expressed in the parables and theology that Freud dismisses as fairy-tale.

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Perhaps what is most convincing – or most irrational, depending on your perspective – about Lewis’s approach is his buoyancy. He openly admits ignorance and doubt. Where his knowledge fails, his wonder flourishes. His comfort with incomprehension could be viewed as intellectual inadequacy, but the child-like resilience it allows him is compelling. When it comes to the question of why God allows suffering, he states simply that he does not know, and goes on to pose the thought that God might perfect us through it, or draw closest to us in it. Such moments remain open questions, not dead ends, revealing the play’s desire to provoke thought rather than to persuade. While his non-answers leave the philosophical debate somewhat unsatisfied, they grant Lewis an innocence that speaks to our human condition of not knowing, but wanting to believe.

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Despite their debate, Freud and Lewis quickly form a fellowship. Moments of heightened tension are quickly forgotten when there is need for compassion, and the play is punctuated frequently by such need. Freud’s obvious pain universally elicits compassion. An endlessly polarising figure, his reputation poses risk to any representation. For someone of such notoriety to be received with grace, there had to be something about him that would lead us to abandon our prejudice. Together, St. Germain’s writing, McQueen’s direction and Papademetriou’s performance coherently foreground his physical ailments, making it impossible to reduce him to his thinking. Labouring to form his words and spluttering blood just when his point reaches its peak, his struggle exposes the cruelty of aging. As highlighted by McQueen, he is gruff and blunt in the way that often makes the elderly endearing.   

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While his notorious qualities remain – his intellectual force, his assertive atheism, his lack of convention – the play ushers out a tenderness in him that both requires and encourages our charity. Not only is he in need of compassion, but he is compassionate. When Lewis’s shellshock is triggered by the air raid, Freud is sensitive, inviting him to talk and diffusing his trauma with a funny story. His intellectual ruthlessness gives way to genuine kindness. I found myself unable to deny that that this was a good man, a caring man, a merciful man. I could no longer revile him.

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Thus, as he posits his views on being and morality, I cannot ignore them. This man is suffering, and this man is good to others who are suffering. His obvious fury at life’s injustice becomes virtuous. His often harsh opinions become evidence of his commitment to truth and goodness. I discover he is like me in his search for truth and his hatred of the world’s evils. I cannot help but grow to respect him and the beliefs he espouses.

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Perhaps it is the case that Freud would not have been like that at all. Perhaps he was arrogant and unkind, and would have mocked Lewis mercilessly had they really met. But perhaps what is more important than historical accuracy is the truth the story expresses. As Lewis’s character states, ‘[myths] are far from lies… they are man’s way of expressing truths that would otherwise go unspoken’. In this case, what seems to speak most significantly to our time is the reaction the play elicits in audiences – I was led to view one of the most notorious critics of my beliefs with mercy.

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It was this potential of the play that suited it to Clock & Spiel Productions, which aims to produce ‘distinctive works’ that are ‘culturally daring’ and ‘bravely human’. As McQueen sees it, this play confronts both the current culture and our universal humanity. By daring to listen to the other graciously, engage with him rationally and sympathise with him genuinely, the characters of this play present a form of dialogue that cuts against the grain of our current culture, determined to judge and quick to cancel. Rather than shy away from pain, controversy or flaws, the play bravely represents an honest humanity – broken, ailing, messy. It is a humanity that suffers, and a humanity unified by its suffering.

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Few art forms could immerse an audience the way theatre does. When the room was blasted with an air raid siren, we shared a moment of panic with the characters, and with each other. For this audience, the scene became almost relatable as the men pulled masks over their faces and hid away from the outside world. It was one of those unforeseen moments when life bleeds into art, granting it poignancy it could not have promised on its own. The threat of war only enhanced this. Having only been weeks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the timing was tragically serendipitous. The sirens were palpable for an audience of people, many of whom are likely witnessing war unfold for the first time. Freud’s point that we survive history only to ‘welcome the next monster’ needed little proof. With all these coincidences, our participation in this scene was unavoidable. This was a suffering we shared.

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Together, life’s big questions are less threatening. Together, life’s suffering is more bearable. The form of theatre is suited to proving these points. In its immediacy and immersion, one is ushered into total empathy and shared humanity. In conversation, McQueen points out theatre’s singularity in gathering people to share a unique moment and to bravely face our inevitable questions together. Here, the power of theatre can be understood as the power of the audience – the force that eases the burden of our existential fears. For the concerns of this play, such a power is both pertinent and necessary. The play offers a portrait of connection and conversation depicted within a form that is itself an invitation to dialogue.

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As McQueen noted, neither man changes his mind. By any standard of rhetoric, it is a waste of an hour and a half. But more than simply a portrait of civil discussion or a consideration of life’s big questions, this play is an invitation to charity. The unity we experience in theatre and the humanity we encounter in this play hinge on the principle of charity. In witnessing the suffering of history’s giants, in recalling our own suffering, in recognising the suffering of our group, our neighbour, our enemy, we are called to compassion. There are few figures as ideologically adversarial as Freud and Lewis. Being philosophers, they necessarily attract criticism. They become their ideas. Everyone can find an enemy in one of them. And yet in the image of their mortality, we are prevented from conflating the man with his opinion.

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Under the shadow of new wars, in both culture and politics, enemies abound. All fronts call for the charity that sees people in place of adversaries. Ironically, the suffering of the other is easily concealed by the conflict that causes it. As revealed by this play, to see suffering is to see clearly the humanity that binds us. It is a call to compassion, and therein lies the detriment of our division.

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This article was based on the play, Freud's Last Session, and an interview with its director, Hailey McQueen, from Clock & Spiel Productions.​