***

Erm, if you’re planning to catch this, let me just take out my “Spoiler Alert” tag. Oh, and my “If Easily Offended, Look At Cat Videos, Instead” tag, too.

*** There you go.

*** As something to take home, Freud’s Last Session was disappointingly safe and unsatisfying. Why? It ends with the usual agree-to-disagree stance. In the context of multi-religious Singapore I’m inclined to concur with the piece leaving things at that. But in the context of the play’s universe, its characters and what they stand for (nuanced though it may be, it’s positioned as a binary clash of Almighty proportions), I’m wondering how a play with such an awesome premise like Freud’s not be obligated to take sides? Think about it. One believes in God, the other doesn’t. That’s like, you know, oil and water. Putting two extremely opinionated people in a room to duke it out and the result is status quo? Sounds pretty much like pure intellectual blabber. And then it hits me. It never needed to push things further because it already has a position. Freud’s Last Session is not just about Freud meeting Lewis. It’s also about a dying atheist meeting a hale-and-hearty Christian—who was also previously an atheist until becoming a convert. Furthermore, they’re not just living in the bubble of Freud’s house picking each other’s brains. There’s a greater backdrop than simply a debate on the existence of God—there’s a war going on. And both of them have, in their separate ways, experienced its horrors. Death and despair completely surround both. But while God-fearing Lewis has something to fall back on, the unbelieving Freud has none. His “last session” was ultimately held in an uneven playing field. (Freud's Last Session runs until Sunday. Details here.)