Photo Flash: Phoenix Theatre Presents FREUD'S LAST SESSION

The Phoenix Theatre of Indianapolis announces the opening of Freud's Last Session, a play by Mark St. Germain, suggested by The Question Of God: Did Freud and Lewis ever meet? by Dr. Armand Nicholi, Jr., Thursday, March 15, in the Frank & Katrina Basile Theatre.

Check out the production photos below!

Freud's Last Session centers on legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud, who invites a young, little-known professor, C.S. Lewis, to his home in London. Lewis, expecting to be called on the carpet for satirizing Freud in a recent book, soon realizes Freud has a much more significant agenda. On the day England enters World War II, Freud and Lewis clash on the existence of God, love, sex and the meaning of life - only two weeks before Freud chooses to take his own.

Freud's Last Session is the winner of the 2011 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best Play. The piece received its world premiere in June of 2009 at the Barrington Stage Company's Stage 2 Theater in Massachusetts. It opened the following year at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater in New York City in July of 2010. It is currently enjoying an extended open run at its new home at New World Stages.??The idea for the play was sparked by a question Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. proffered in his book The Question of God: Did Freud and Lewis ever meet? After Freud immigrated to England, a young Oxford professor visited Freud during this time but has not been identified. Might it have been Lewis???The play is set in London, late morning on September 3, 1939. Hitler's Blitzkrieg has bulldozed its way over Poland. England and France have just declared war on Germany. A constant threat of air raids permeates the English sky. Despite that pall hanging over the city, a 41-year-old C.S. Lewis makes his way to Freud's home in Hampstead, NW London, to meet the famous man. There he finds the 83 year-old doctor suffering from inoperable mouth cancer. At this point in his life Freud's greatest accomplishments are clearly behind him. In contrast to that, the younger man has yet to put forth his most famous fictional works-The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. ??At first there is a misunderstanding as to why Freud has invited Lewis to his home. But soon enough it is clear that the great older mind from Austria wishes to understand why the great younger mind from England has shifted from atheist to theist. And the battle of wills and ideologies begins. Set against the backdrop of one of the most pivotal moments in global history, the onset of WWII-one of the most godless epochs-the dialogue between the men as to quantifying faith, (or the lack of it), in a theistic paradigm, takes on a great resonance.

Tickets may be purchased by calling the box office at 317.635.7529 to charge by phone, and are available online at phoenixtheatre.org. All seating is general admission on a first-come, first-served basis. Performances are Thursdays at 7:00 pm; Fridays at 8:00 pm, Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm, unless otherwise noted on our website. Doors open ½ hour prior to curtain for seating. The Phoenix Pub, located inside the theatre, offers beer, wine, soft drinks, coffee and bottled water, as well as treats, and all refreshments may be taken into either theatre and consumed during the performance. For more information about any Phoenix productions or to purchase tickets, call the Phoenix Theatre box office at 317.635.7529. Tickets may also be purchased online. The theatre's website is www.phoenixtheatre.org.