I am not sure I can ever finish prepping to direct Freud's Last Session. Going into tech, I am still reading! Since C.S. Lewis and Freud were both such prolific writers, it is near impossible to be fully versed in their independent world views. I have always been fond of Lewis and had read a good deal of his Christian apologetics, yet not all. It has been a pleasure to wrap my head around his ideas once again. Freud I had not read since college days nor did I remember much of his writings. His ideas permeate our vocabulary: repression, depression, anxiety, ego, id, libido, anal, compulsion, defense mechanism, oedipal complex, etc.Thus he is remembered regardless as he slips into our subconscious.

So aside from reading as much as I can of their individual work, especially works cited in the play, I have read the book the play is based on and viewed the PBS documentary of the same. I am familiar with the period and Anna Tucker, our dramaturge, has provided information about the historical references in the play. This is a huge help to both director and actor alike.

The designers and I had preliminary meetings about taking what is on the surface a realistic setting of Freud's office in London and surrounding it with an abstraction of the bigger ideas presented in the play. We wanted something to represent the infinite possibilities to the answer of the question of God and thus for each audience member to take away their own meaning, questions, and answers.

So I speak for everyone on the team when I say: research, research, research! You can never do too much homework with the likes of Freud and Lewis.

See you at the show.

-Jessica Phelps West