TrulyGrace

Freud's Last Session, Pittsburgh 2012

Last night Nancy and I went to Thai food in the Strip District. It was great. I was looking for something fresh with mint, so got the fresh summer roll. I also wanted to try the fried calamari, which went beyond all expectations. Nancy enjoyed an entree with rice. We shared a coconut sticky rice with mango, and split a thai iced tea for good measure.

We met the chef, Penny, at the beginning of the evening.

We hurried off to park near the O'Reilly Theatre. At the theater we saw Freud's Last Session, a play about a supposed visit by C.S. Lewis of Sigmund Freud at Freud's place in London on the eve of the British involvement in World War II. Pretty powerful. The play's set was nothing short of grand academic, with the whole back wall covered with bookcases of books, some in German, some in English, and some were resurrected from the Pitt Law Library deaccession pile.

The whole play involved just the two personages of Freud and Lewis. The room was charged, at times, in that inimitable, understated English fashion that left one wondering if there were a teakettle on the verge of boiling. The differences in opinions of the two men (Freud, the atheist meets minds with Lewis, the converted Catholic) were enough to keep the conversation rolling.

Highly acclaimed in its New York off-Broadway run, Freud's Last Session was a thoughtful, intellectual, funny, and ("could-it-have-been-") historical (fictional?) theater piece. A true gem.

Our favorite part of arriving was spotting Ted Pappas as we made our entrance to the theatre space.

posted by Grace @ 3/10/2012 07:45:00 PM