Other Desert Venues!!
FUSION
Theatre Company is growing! We're thrilled
to announce performances beyond our home for
the past ten years, The Cell. FUSION will present
Freud's Last Session:
Thursday, Nov. 1, The Cell, ABQ,
8PM GALA OPENING
Friday, Nov. 2, The Cell, ABQ, 6PM
Saturday, Nov. 3, The Cell, ABQ, 2PM (matinee) SOLD
OUT!!
Saturday, Nov. 3, The Cell, ABQ, 8PM SOLD
OUT!!
Sunday, Nov. 4, The Cell, ABQ, 6PM
-----
Thursday, Nov. 8, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 8PM
Friday, Nov. 9, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 8PM
Saturday, Nov. 10, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 2PM (matinee)
Saturday, Nov. 10, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 8PM
Sunday, Nov. 11, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 6PM
-----
Wednesday, Nov. 14, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 8PM
Thursday, Nov. 15, South Broadway Cultural Ctr,
ABQ, 8PM
-----
Friday, Nov. 16, The Lensic Performing Arts Center,
Santa Fe, 8PM
Saturday, Nov. 17, The Lensic Performing Arts
Center, Santa Fe, 2PM (matinee)
Saturday, Nov. 17, The Lensic Performing Arts
Center, Santa Fe, 8PM
Special Student Pricing!!
New this year: students may purchase tickets
at the
South Broadway Performance Hall performances
for only $10!!!!
|
For
tickets and information call 766-9412 or click
here:
Free parking
is plentiful in our lot just north of the theatre.
The Cell is located at 700 1st St.
N.W., just west of Broadway and south of Lomas. The
South Broadway Cultural Center is on Broadway,
south of downtown; ample parking is available in
the Center lot and on Broadway. Parking in Santa
Fe is available at a number of inexpensive
public lots in the immediate vicinity of the Lensic.
Review, broadwayworld.com,
by Anya Sebastian, 4/5/12:
"FREUD’S LAST SESSION,
the off-Broadway runaway hit by Mark St. Germain,
is now playing at The Cell - home of the Fusion Theatre
Company - and I urge you not to miss it!
This highly
unusual play, set in London in September 1939, on
the eve of World War II, imagines a meeting
between Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis,
and writer C.S.Lewis, then a young professor at Oxford.
Freud,
played by Gregory Wagrowski, is an analytical thinker,
scientist and lifelong atheist, who, at
the age of 83, is now dying of oral cancer. (The
meeting allegedly took place just two weeks before
Freud killed himself.)
Lewis, played by Scott Harrison,
is 41 and a former non-believer, who has now embraced
Christianity.
In Freud’s book-lined study, complete with
couch, and in real time (about 90 minutes, with no
interval) the two men embark on a riveting, intellectual
fencing match, set in motion by Freud’s admission
that he had wanted to meet Lewis,‘ to learn
how a man of your intellect could suddenly abandon
truth and embrace an insidious lie.’
Freud regards
God as an illusion, arising from Man’s
need for a powerful parent figure. ‘Why should
I take Christ’s word that he was God, any more
than I believe any one of my patients, who calls
himself God?’ he asks. But Lewis, the convert,
is not to be deterred, arguing, ‘There is a
God… and a man does not have to be an imbecile
to believe in him.’
Thanks to the engaging,
fast-paced dialogue, liberally laced with wit, jokes
and good-natured humor, the
play keeps the audience involved and entertained
from start to finish. Considering it has just one
act, one scene, a cast of two and virtually no action,
that’s no mean achievement. Special credit
goes to the director, Jacqueline Reid, who did an
outstanding job with this production.
Wagrowski delivers
a very credible impression of Freud, a man racked
with pain, but whose intellectual
capacities are still clearly intact. His physical
distress, severe enough to cause him to collapse
on his own couch at one point, is so convincing that
you could hear a pin drop.
The humanity of both men
comes through in the ongoing sparring match between
these two great minds, as
they debate the existence of God, religion, free
will, relationships, sex, love and the meaning
of life itself.
As CS Lewis, Harrison conveys the young
Oxford don’s
initial tentativeness, when first entering the great
man’s study. But it doesn’t take long
for the spirited conversation to draw him out as
an intellectual equal. The tension between the two
men is palpable, as is their chemistry, and both
actors deserve special credit for creating and maintaining
a relationship that can keep an audience enthralled
for 11/2 hours. In spite of their differences, Lewis
can’t help warming to Freud, the man, and the
two finally part company with genuine affection and
a deepened respect for each other’s views.
And
don’t be put off by the title; you don’t
need a degree in psychology to enjoy FREUD’S
LAST SESSION. The topics are universal, well presented
and thought provoking - the play is currently in
production in several other countries - and it’s
guaranteed to set you thinking about your own views
on these fundamentally important issues."
Review, Albuquerque
Journal, by Barry
Gaines, 4/9/12:
"FUSION Theatre Company continues
its series of plays imported from New York City stages
with a fine production of Freud’s Last
Session by Mark St. Germain. This two-man,
one-act work dramatizes an intellectually stimulating
meeting between the father of psychoanalysis, ardent
atheist Sigmund Freud, and devout defender of rational
Christianity C.S. Lewis. That such a meeting never
happened in no way diminishes the impact of their
on-stage debate.
St. Germain’s play is suggested
by “The
Question of God” by Armand M. Nicholi Jr.,
a Harvard professor who taught classes in which Freud’s
ideas on “God, love, sex, and the meaning of
life”- the book’s subtitle – are
compared with Lewis’. The play’s articulate,
witty and intense dialogue comes from their writings
as presented in Nicholi’s book.
Freud’s Last Session is purposely
set in Freud’s London study on Sept. 3, 1939, the
day that Britain and France declared war on Hitler’s
Germany. The historical Freud, 83, was three weeks
away from his death, and his advanced, agonizing
oral cancer made speaking almost impossible. In the
play, however, while Freud is in pain from his cancer
and a poorly fitted oral prosthetic, his mind is
sharp and his discourse spirited.
Lewis is 40, an Oxford don, who some
years earlier had converted from atheism to the Anglican
Church. The onset of another world war (Lewis had
fought and been wounded in the first) gives special
importance to the questions of divine purposes.
Set and lighting designer Richard Hogle has created
an imposing set. A massive series of bookshelves
crammed with volumes stretch along the back wall
of the study, oriental carpets adorn the floor, the
expected patient couch and analyst chair balance
Freud’s desk and chair on opposite sides of
the room. His collection of classical figures and
pictures are evident.
Director Jacqueline Reid has
chosen her actors wisely. Gregory Wagrowski portrays
a sympathetic Sigmund
Freud, unwilling to alter his staunch rejection of
religion – that “pathetic, obsessional
neurosis” – despite his terrible pain
and impending death. Wagrowski’s Freud has
a sparkle in his eye when the debate grows heated;
regardless of everything, he enjoys the intellectual
sparring.
Newcomer Scott Harrison is excellent
as C.S. Lewis. His character is able to laugh at
himself
but grows
priggish when Freud probes his sexual history. Lewis
had parodied Freud in a book as a “vain, ignorant
old man,” but Harrison’s Lewis is respectful
and humorous in the old man’s presence.
Lewis
can no more prove the existence of God than Freud
can disprove it; neither man is convinced by
the other’s arguments. Audience members are
left to judge for themselves, and the opening night
audience responded with a standing ovation."
Review, Chicago Tribune,
by Chris Jones, 3/27/12:
"To a large extent, Freud's
Last Session, which was written by Mark
St. Germain and suggested by a book called "The
Question of God" by Armand M. Nicholai, Jr.
is a scrupulously balanced play specifically designed
to allow two of the greatest minds of the 20th
century—one who saw all religious fantasies
as flowing from hidden psychological need or desire,
and the other a romantic man determined to make
the intellectual case for faith—to go at
each other for 90 minutes or so, pondering the
really big and juicy questions about life in such
a way that we ponder them in their wake. Even as
merely such, it has great appeal for those who
weary of intellectually trivial drama."
Review, Huffington Post,
by Robert Bullen, 3/27/12:
"Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis
engage in a battle of wits that is exciting and thought-provoking.
And it makes for riveting theater. Freud's
Last Session is a theatrical and intellectual delight."
Review, last month's "Other
Desert Cities," our inaugural presentation
at the historic
Lensic Theatre, by James M. Keller in Pasatiempo:
A
theatrical infusion from FUSION
Santa Fe's Theater aficionados had cause to
rejoice this past weekend when the FUSION Theatre
Company
of Albuquerque launched a collaborative venture
with, and at, The Lensic Performing Arts Center.
Our hometown companies have provided Santa
Feans with a wealth of theatrical productions
over
the years, but it has proved difficult for
troupes to sustain the kind of support needed
to guarantee
professional-level dependability. A city with
an arts community as vibrant as Santa Fe's
should be able to nourish theater companies
with differing
missions and aspirations, but the scene cannot
be complete without a professional-level company
to set a high standard and raise the bar all
around. This initiative may fill that niche.
FUISON's auspicious first production
at the Lensic was Other Desert Cities, a smart, multilayered,
neatly written play by Jon Robin Baitz. It was
warmly received in New York when unveiled Off
Broadway (at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E.
Newhouse Theater) in early 2011, and apparently
it took on further polish when it moved to a
Broadway run at the Booth Theatre later that
year.
Clybourne Park (by
Bruce Norris) nosed it out for both the Pulitzer
Prize and the Tony
Award for Best Play. After seeing both productions
on consecutive days last April, I judged them
at nearly a dead heat but would give the edge
to Other Desert Cities. As it
happens, Fusion will bring Clybourne
Park to Santa Fe (on March
22-23), in a season that also includes Freud’s
Last Session by Mark St. Germain (on
Nov. 16-17) and Humble Boy by
Charlotte Jones (on May 10-11). All these plays
have already proved their bona
fides. It is a fine and commendable thing
for a theater company to devote itself to shepherding
brand-new works into existence—which FUSION
sometimes does in Albuquerque— but there
is also wisdom in selecting recent plays that
have already been vetted through earlier productions
elsewhere.
Other Desert Cities is a tragicomedy
involving five members of the Wyeth family. Father
and
mother Lyman and Polly both retired from lesser
Hollywood careers to devote themselves to Republican
politics in Southern California, where they used
to hobnob with their pals Ron and Nancy and now
live in emotionally stunted comfort in Palm Springs.
Their son Trip produces a cheesy TV courtroom
show; daughter Brooke, author of a single novel,
gets considerable mileage out of the time she
spent hospitalized for depression; and Polly’s
sister, Silda, is fresh out of rehab and now
bivouacking at the Wyeths’ home. Familial
love is not in doubt here, but it gets expressed
in stressful ways. Brooke arrives for Christmas
bearing the manuscript of her new memoir, which
details how the loss of another brother years
earlier, and her parents’ reaction to that
tragedy, shaped her painful life. It turns out
she does not have the whole story, and as the
truth emerges in the course of the play, easy
judgments viewers may have attached to the characters
grow complicated indeed.
Apart from a brief and touching epilogue,
the production, directed by Gil Lazier and designed
sparingly but effectively by Richard Hogle, unrolled
entirely in the Wyeths’ living room, which
at once betokened their affluence and a sense
of daredness, of holding onto the past. The five
actors achieved a strong sense of ensemble at
the opening Santa Fe performance, on Sept. 21.
Each earned the audience’s sympathy in
his or her own way. Joanne Camp, as Polly, grew
the most in the span of her portrayal, from a
seemingly soulless snob to a matriarch who has
charted what she believes, rightly or wrongly,
to be the best course for her family. Paul Blott
depicted Lyman as a man nearly exhausted by his
self-imposed emotional captivity, a man who cannot
continue much further under the weight of his
burden. Jacqueline Reid , as Brooke, may have
claimed the audience’s sympathies at first,
but she also invested her part with a degree
of narcissism that may have left viewers guiltily
wishing for her downfall—not an easy balance
within a role. James Louis Wagner struck a winning
presence as Trip, whose wide-eyed charm was his
weapon against confrontation. Laurie Thomas was
a disheveled yet effective Silda, a recovering
addict just barely holding on, but I felt Lazier
might have profitably directed her more in the
direction of comedy. Making an addict a comic
foil would certainly raise issues of taste, but
I think that is what Baitz wanted this part to
accomplish. The climate around the Wyeth house
is tense, and Silda seems the person best suited
to temper the prickly mood. In general Lazier’s
direction was logical and unobtrusive. He seemed
intent on underplaying a couple of highly fraught
exchanges, including (oddly) the moment in which
the family’s darkest secret is revealed.
But on the whole his directorial instincts seemed
firmly in sympathy with the play’s strengths,
and the tempo he adopted allowed the audience
to appreciate the literary aspects of Baitz’s
achievement without making the play seem overlong.
FUISON’s three Santa Fe performances
of Other Desert Cities followed
12 go-rounds at The Cell, the company’s considerably
smaller home theater in Albuquerque. The production
made
the transition to The Lensic’s larger space
seamlessly. If you missed it, too bad for you,
but as the season unrolls you’ll have three
more chances to get on board for the most promising
live-theater venture to hit this town in a good
long while.
Freud's
Last Session Cast
Scott Harrison
|
Scott Harrison (C.S.
Lewis) has performed regionally in New York,
Boston, Miami, and Washington, DC in productions
including The Taming of the Shrew, Long
Day’s
Journey Into Night, Suburbia, and Wit. Since
moving to Santa Fe with his wife Lisa, he has
performed with Theaterwork, Theater Grottesco,
Chamber Theater, Greer Garson Theatre Company,
and at The Lensic in productions that include
The Rainmaker, Wenomadmen, and The
Laramie Project: 10 Years Later. In 2005, he founded Ironweed
Productions. He has performed in the Ironweed
productions of Fool for Love, True
West, and
Rabbit Hole, and he has directed productions
of ‘night Mother, Doubt:
a Parable, The
Trip to Bountiful, American
Buffalo, and Our
Town. In 2009, he appeared opposite Jacqueline
Reid in Pieboy Films’ noir short, Heat
Lightning. Most recently he played “Nick” in
The Guys by Anne Nelson, a benefit production
commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Scott
is a graduate of the American Repertory Theatre
Institute in Cambridge, MA and also studied at
the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory in Washington,
DC. |
Gregory Wagrowski
|
Gregory Wagrowski* (Sigmund
Freud) has been working professionally as an
actor and director for over thirty years. He
served as the Artistic Director for both the
Smokebrush Theater and The Colorado Actors’ Theater.
He has performed a variety of roles in theaters
across the country including the Public Theater
in New York, the St. Louis Repertory Company,
the Magic Theater in San Francisco, the Mark
Taper Forum, and the Los Angeles Theater Center
where he was an Artistic Associate for seven
years. He was a founding member of two theater
companies, The Old World Theater Company in Chicago
and The Noe Street Theater in San Francisco.
He is proud to be working with the FUSION once
again, where he has been seen in productions
of Time Stands Still, You
Can’t Get A Decent
Margarita At The North Pole, Once
In A Lifetime,
Talk To Me Like The Rain, and August:
Osage County.
He has worked extensively in both film and television
where his most recent credits include In
Plain Sight, Odd Way Home, Mad
Men, The Unit, Criminal
Minds, and ER. He has
also recently finished directing his first film, Matanza.
Gregory has been a proud member of
the Actors' Equity Association since 1981. |
* member Actors Equity Association
the union of professional actors and stage managers
in the United States
