arts & entertainment
Mitchell
Cory
Greenberg
Kresbach
plays Sigmund
plays C.S.
Freud
Lewis
In Freud's Last Session, Jewish-born atheist Sigmund Freud and
atheist-turned-devout Christian C.S. Lewis engage in a war of ideas.
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
A
ctor Mitch Greenberg has upbeat
memories of offstage time in
Michigan — walking near Lake
Superior on a bitingly cold winter day and
listening to the Greektown piano of Dr. John
during a night on the town.
Greenberg, who has appeared in children's
theater around the state and in a brief pre-
Broadway tryout at the Fisher Theatre, is not
really qualified to analyze his recollections,
but the character he soon will portray —
father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud —
would have been.
The actor has the title role in the Michigan
premiere of Freud's Last Session, a new play
by Mark St. Germain running Sept. 7-Nov. 20
Gem & Century
Theatres
Fall Schedule
reud's Last Session opens the
20th-anniversary season of the
Gem & Century Theatres. Other
fall programming, with ticket informa-
tion available by calling (313) 963-
9800 or going online at gemtheatre.
com , features:
F
at the Century Theatre in Detroit.
Inspired by the book The Question of
God by Dr. Armand Nicholi Jr., a Harvard
Medical School psychiatry professor, Freud's
Last Session allows the audience to wit-
ness the legendary psychoanalyst engage in
heated discourse with the then little-known
professor C.S. Lewis. Freud invites Lewis to
his home in London, where Lewis expects
to be criticized for having ridiculed Freud in
a recent book; instead, the two passionately
and poignantly differ on the existence of
God, love, sex and the meaning of life.
The two-person play, while bringing
together the historical figures of Sigmund
Freud and Christian writer C.S. Lewis,
remains fictional. The men never met, nor
did they have the depicted conversation;
their separate writings provide the sub-
Daddy Long Legs
Sept. 14-Nov. 20 at the Gem
Theatre
The new musical, directed by John
Caird (the award-winning director of
the London versions of Les Miserables
and Nicholas Nickleby), with music and
lyrics by Paul Gordon and based on the
1912 Jane Webster novel of the same
name, is set at the turn of the last cen-
tury and tells of an orphan educated
by an anonymous donor to whom she
writes monthly letters.
stance for clashes of concepts. (Later in life,
Lewis wrote the popular children's series
The Chronicles of Narnia and married Joy
Davidman Gresham, an American writer of
Chasidic Jewish background. A former com-
munist and atheist, she, like the Belfast-born
Lewis, had converted to Christianity. After
her death a few years later, Lewis raised her
two sons from a previous marriage, one of
whom later converted back to Orthodox
Judaism.)
The winner of the 2011 Off Broadway
Alliance Award for Best Play, Freud's Last
Session is still running in New York and is set
for productions around the world through
2012.
"This is a smart play',' says Greenberg, 60,
portraying the psychoanalyst at an age 20
years senior to the actor."It has good ideas
that are presented well.
"The language is clever but easy to under-
stand. It has a sneaky sense of humor that
creeps in every couple of pages in the script.
There are nice laughs out of things people
won't expect to bring laughs."
The play takes place on the day England
enters World War II, just two weeks before
Freud, ill with incurable cancer, chose to
take his own life with the help of a physician
friend who administered large doses of mor-
phine. To become familiar with the man-
nerisms of the analytic icon, Greenberg has
listened to recordings of Freud and watched
some films of him.
"When I was younger, I read Freud's book
The Future of an Illusion, which is about
religion, and I have some memory of that','
says Greenberg, whose stage roles have
The All Night Strut Holiday
Show!
Nov. 23-Dec. 31 at the Gem
Theatre
Sister's Christmas Catechism:
The Mystery of the Magi's
Gold
Nov. 23-Dec. 31 at the Century
Theatre
With a new holiday twist, the musi-
cal, penned by Fran Charnas just for
the Gem, has two acts taking audi-
ences through the sounds heard dur-
ing the Depression, World War II and
post-war boom. There will be funky
jive, jazz, blues, bebop and standard
numbers. Frank Loesser will be one of
the spotlighted composers.
In this latest version of the Late Nite
Catechism series, Sister uses tech-
niques from the CS/ television show to
find the Magi's gold. Audience mem-
bers are invited to participate in creat-
ing a living nativity scene.
- Suzanne Chessler
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