San Jose Rep presents….

FREUD’S LAST SESSION

By Mark St. Germain

Directed by Stephen Wrentmore

Starring Ben Evett & J. Michael Flynn

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith

Than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.

Joseph Addison

This play is an imaginary glimpse into the minds of two great thinkers, C. S. Lewis and Dr. Sigmund Freud in a conversation the day before England enters World War II and two weeks before Freud, dying of oral cancer ends his own life.  The two men discuss love, sex and the existence of God and debate the value and impact of all three on the human condition.

 

Kent Dorsey’s magnificent set recreates Freud’s study and sets the mood for the 90 minute discussion between the two men.  Director Stephen Wrentmore manages to keep the play moving by making use of the entire stage.  The characters move from the tea table, to the couch to the radio to listen to the news proclaiming the imminence of war.  Somehow, the combination of excellent direction and superb acting keeps the dialogue from descending into a tiresome recitation of two men’s conflicting philosophies.

 

C. S. Lewis ((Ben Evett) has recently embraced religion and Freud (J. Michael Flynn) says, “I want to learn why a man of your intellect would abandon truth and embrace a lie.”  The remaining 90 minutes is spent hearing the reason Lewis knows that God exists and Freud is equally sure religion is a myth.

 

Freud points out that the very existence of Hitler proves that there is no supreme being watching over us and Lewis disagrees.  “Hitler’s actions reinforce the opposite,” he says. “We have to accept that there is a moral law.” And he goes on to say, “The wish that God doesn’t exist can be stronger than the wish that God does.

 

Freud counters with “Theologians hide behind their ignorance;” and as the discussion continues he says, “I always find what people don’t tell me is less important than what they do.”    Lewis sees that Freud is dying and he says, “How can a man of your intelligence think the end is the end?   When you are faced with death, then what?”

 

Indeed, through the endless back and forth discussion whether God exists or if He is a product of our imagination, the arguments presented were the same l ones religious leaders and atheist have been tossing back and forth every since religion began.  It was Michael Bakunin who said, “All religions, with their gods, their demi-gods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the prejudiced fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.”

 

In contrast Calvin Coolidge said, “It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love.”

 

The debate we heard on the San José Repertory’s stage was the one that has been going on for centuries.  There were no shocking revelations, no new lights cast on the eternal conflict between religion and its opponents.  The play is saved by the virtuosity of the actors moving across an amazing set that recreates the time the play is taking place and the pace of the production.  You won’t hear anything new in this play, nor will the ideas presented convince you that your own belief is invalid.  I doubt that either argument presented in the script will be innovative or strong enough to convert a believer and convince one who does not.  The virtue of this production is in the acting and direction and for that alone it is well worth the price of admission.

 

 

 

FREUD’S LAST SESSION continues through  November 4, 2012

San Jose Repertory theatre

101 Paseo de San Antonio

San Jose

Tickets $29-$74 408 367 7255 or www. Sjrep.com

           

WHAT WILL THE TOOTH FAIRY DO?

Lynn Ruth Miller

 

Most people can’t even think what to hope for

 When they throw a penny in a fountain.
Barbara Kingsolver

There is talk on this side of the pond, of getting rid of money. “Today, only 7% of all transactions in the United States are done with cash, and most of those transactions involve very small amounts of money.“ says the internet blog, The Economic Collapse. “Our financial system is dramatically changing, and cash is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.”

 

These days, it costs more than it’s worth to manufacture the cash we stuff into our wallets and bulging coin purses. In America, it costs 11.18 cents to mint a 5 cent piece and a penny costs 2.41 cents.  It isn’t much better in Britain.  Although the Royal Mint will not reveal how much it costs to mint 1p, rumor has it that the cost from manufacture to distribution is approximately £3.

 

That doesn’t make sense.

 

Besides the cost to make them, there is the threat to our health and well being.  Coins and bills land in thousands of pockets, are touched by millions of hands and no one ever cleans them up.  The bills are tattered and full of germs; the coins are not only cumbersome but they create embarrassing bulges that aren’t what you think they are.

 

When coins were first invented, everyone thought it was the greatest idea since the fig leaf.  Coins didn’t rot or die on you.  Their value didn’t deteriorate with time.  You could stick them in the bank and they would be there for years and still have value. You used them to reward children and toss in fountains.  You stuck them under pillows when children lost their baby teeth and you put them in your shoe for good luck.

 

What will happen to the Piggy Bank when pennies are no more? When I was a child, this was the time of year when I began stuffing pennies in the little ceramic pig I got for Christmas last year so I could buy my Mama a present for Christmas this year.  Every day, I would put in a penny I had earned for helping her bring in the groceries or drying the dishes (now you know how old I am) and by December first, my little pig was bulging with the hard earned cash I had fed him. I would go to the jewelry store, hand the clerk my piggy bank and say, “What can I buy my mother with this?”  She and I would smash the bank and pile the pennies into columns of ten and then tabulate the results.  One year, I was able to buy my mother a silver candle snuffer and another time, I bought her a lapel pin with a little blue stone in the middle…all with the money I earned doing chores.

 

Children these days would either have to type in a code on their cell phones or swipe a credit card to pay for that special something they want to buy for their parents.  It just couldn’t give them the same sense of accomplishment.  Every penny I gave that saleslady had a story behind it. All a credit card has is an APR.

Say good-by to wallets when cash is no more.  You can keep all your credit information on your cell phone or slip your credit card in your pocket.   Profiles will be slimmer and, because seeing the cash, made you realize how much you were actually spending, expenditures will go up.  But who cares?  It’s all just numbers and as every politician knows you can make numbers say anything you want.

 

The good news is if you keep your pennies stashed away in a bureau drawer, they will become valuable relics from another time, like vinyl records and rotary dial phones.   Your heirs can sell your stash for at least 500% of their face value.  That should pay for your casket!

When I was young I thought that money

Was the most important thing in life;

Now that I am old, I know that it is.
Oscar Wilde

 

Lohengrin
SF Opera Performance, October 20, 2012

The concept of love put forward in Lohengrin is that of a fragile flower very dependent upon maintaining illusions. Love is equivalent to blind Faith in goodness and constancy that must be absolute and unquestioning. But the underlying anxieties of this kind of naive faith ultimately undermine it and do it in. Lohengrin echoes Christianity in its demand for simple faith and the basic concept of a man is sent from God to rescue a damsel in distress, accused of a terrible crime. He saves her, not through self sacrifice, as in the Christian model, but through militaristic combat — a Wagnerian variant on the Christian theme. Superior prowess on the battlefield saves the girl from her enemies and wins her love. The woman’s love is the hero’s reward for her rescue from desperation. But there is one condition. The woman cannot ask her rescuer who he is or where he comes from. She has to take him completely on faith and let his actions of rescue and his superior strength in battle be the sole foundation of her devotion and love. If she is to question him and demand to know more of who he is, then he will be forced to leave her and renounce her. It is love founded on the most narrow, simplistic grounds and maintained with a gun pointed at the woman’s head, so to speak. Love can only be maintained with the woman in a desperate position of neediness with the man serving as the heroic figure of strength who magnanimously saves her from perpetual impending catastrophe. Love as worship of the conquering hero. While a woman may feel grateful to be delivered from impending doom — at least for a time — she will soon feel the extreme vulnerability of this position of helpless dependence, as the opera demonstrates. She will question her own worthiness of the man’s continuing love, she will want to broaden the base of the relationship and feel more appealing to the man beyond mere helplessness and need. She will feel the fragility of the connection to him. She feels vulnerable to his tiring of her and moving on. She seeks to strengthen her position through a greater understanding of the man, who he is, and what his own needs and vulnerabilities are. The message of Lohengrin is that this is a destructive tendency, that love can only be this primitive, blind devotion stemming from a condition of imminent undoing. Love between a man and a woman essentially depends on a woman being in a perpetual state of crisis. But on the other hand, if the woman gets to know who the man is and where he comes from, then she will realize that he is not the invulnerable hero, not the idealized figure of goodness and strength that he presented himself to be, and thus her love and devotion will be annuled. The man’s insecurity and feelings of unworthiness are activated upon a deeper probing of his true self. It is a very pessimistic outlook on relations between the sexes. Love can only be born and continue within these very narrow confines of faith sustained through willful ignorance, and that fragile foundation gives rise to the anxieties and demands that sabotage and destroy it. It is an outlook on life that is essentially dark and tragic — and a little silly too.
A few quibbles with the San Francisco Opera’s performance.
This production of the opera is set in a modern context in modern costumes, although Wagner’s original conceptualization set it in 10th century Saxony. On the cover of the program is a photograph by Erich Lessing of the destruction of the Stalin monument in Budapest, Hungary, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The idea according to Director Daniel Slater is that a contemporary setting would make it “more exciting and relevant for the audience.” Well, most Americans living today can probably relate to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 about as well as they can relate to 10th century Saxony. Many of us would be surprised to discover that there was a revolution in Hungary in 1956. And where is Hungary, by the way?
There are some militaristic and nationalistic elements in the opera that resonated well with the National Socialists, but you have to keep in mind that Germany did not even exist as a unified nation at the time this opera was composed. Invasion from the East was a long standing European fear that would be readily grasped by any European audience. The fact that this was a pressing matter in the 10th century would not be peculiar to that time or have any compelling significance as a factor in setting the opera in that time and place. I think Wagner’s purpose in setting the opera long in the past, aside from these nationalistic overtones, was to give the opera a context where the kind of romantic idealizations in the personal sphere that the opera treats would have traction for the viewer free from the distractions of a contemporary political and social context. Moving it forward in time and bringing up contemporary political issues in my view disrupts the essential focus of this opera on the nature of human relationships. True, the opera takes place under the threat of impending war. But this was a condition of European life as far back as one cares to look. So in that sense it did not matter when the opera was set, this background factor of imminent war was going to remain a constant in whatever time period it occurred. Wagner set it long in the past precisely to expunge the contingencies of the immediate contemporary circumstances. Bringing the opera forward and setting it in our own time defeats that artistic purpose and makes the whole thing sort of confusing.
Director Slater sees Lohengrin as a problematic character who renounces his godlike status in order to experience human love with Elsa. This is based on musings external to the opera itself. Within the opera there is nothing problematic about Lohengrin. He was sent on a mission by the Grail. He fulfilled the mission, he accepted Elsa as his prize, he accepted the leadership position as a warrior, he laid out his conditions, and he stuck to them steadfastly and departed without any apparent signs of misgiving. Slater says he is seeking redemption through Elsa’s love and is willing to sacrifice his immortality to achieve it. There is nothing in the opera to substantiate this view. Within the opera, Lohengrin is a knight in shining armor coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress and then to lead an army into battle. Slater puts him instead in a leather trench coat, which tends to deemphasize his heroic qualities. But counterculture figures don’t usually lead armies. I’m not sure that it works. Lohengrin is not Hamlet.
Generally the staging is rather static and unimaginative. At times it gets dull because there is not enough activity in the staging or aesthetic interest in the lighting to sustain one’s attention. The lighting in the first act is bright and harsh. The early part of the second act feels a little cramped against the front edge of the stage. In the original conception the swan was supposed to pull a boat down the river bearing Lohengrin. Slater gives that up and opts for much less impressive imagery of a static pair of wings from which Lohengrin emerges. At the end the long lost Gottfried reappears as a small boy from the transformed swan. But it doesn’t make sense that Gottfried should reappear as a small boy. He disappeared years ago as a child. His sister Elsa has grown into a mature woman. He should be contemporary with Elsa. Furthermore, he is supposed to arrive ready to lead an army into battle, to step into the role being abdicated by Lohengrin, but he can barely lift a sword. What is Slater seeking by casting Gottfried as an 8 year old boy? Some sort of cutesy sentimentality? A child’s appearance at the end of this dark, gloomy opera trying to wave a sword is a rather ridiculous juxtaposition if you ask me, and I take it to indicate that he completely misunderstands what the opera is all about. This is not a child’s opera at all and introducing a child as a final punctuation mark on this tragedy is a colossal malapropism.
What works in this opera is the music. If it wasn’t for the music, it probably wouldn’t even be staged. The orchestra, the singers, the chorus, did a superb job and made it a musical success, even if it left much to be desired as a dramatic production. Wagner’s great creativity and strength was as a composer of music more than as a dramatist or as a prophet. It is clearly evident in this dark opera and in its problematic staging in this San Francisco Opera production.