I was honored to have the chance to connect with Mark H. Dold, the brilliant actor who plays C.S. Lewis, about his role, the piece, and why the ideas it raises are so important for us to consider in this day and age. I highly recommend grabbing a ticket as soon as you can.
Christa – How did you come to learn about and be cast as C.S. Lewis in Freud’s Last Session?
Mark – It was a random phone call from Barrington Stage Co. Artistic Director Julianne Boyd. A reading was being done in NYC at The Cosmopolitan Club in the Fall of 2008. The head of the board, Maryanne Quison is a member. The reading was to increase awareness of BSC. The actor scheduled to read the role of C.S. Lewis was not feeling well the day before, so I was asked at the eleven hour to step in. I’ve been in the role ever since.
C – What a wonderful turn of fate for you! What was your first reaction to the piece?
M – I didn’t know what to think. I only had 24 hours to wrap my brain around the script and that’s not nearly enough time. I’m still researching Lewis over a year later. I remember thinking that the script was dense and I was unable to see any of he humor that came flying out when we actually began rehearsing and performing the piece in the Berkshires. Beyond that, I will never forgot how I felt after the reading at The Cosmopolitan Club. In two quick days I had managed to fall madly in love with the play in a way that hadn’t happened in a long time. I loved the idea, the debate, the characters.
What really struck me was how the two men seemed very real. They were hardly iconic cutouts. There was flesh and blood there. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be “brain smart” enough to play Lewis but I knew I was “heart smart” enough.
C – I love that idea of being “heart smart”. You’ve been researching C.S. Lewis now for over a year. How do you conduct that research?
M – I decided very early on not to do any reading beyond September 3, 1939. It was important to me to know everything Lewis had written up to this point. After all the play is about the man he is not the man is going to become. Of course one informs the other, but if the words didn’t exist on the page by Sept. 3, 1939, then I didn’t read it. Of course I am familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia but, again, I didn’t go back to them.
I focused on Lewis’ early writing. His letters, his poetry, and found his autobiography Surprised By Joy very helpful. That book was written later in his life but it focuses on his earlier days leading up to his conversion with Freud. I also made sure to read anything that is referenced in the play. GK Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, The New Testament, etc. I did a lot of reading. I still am.
People coming to the show are now sharing some of their favorite books with both Martin [Rayner; the actor who plays Freud] and me. Some they’ve read and even some they’ve written. I’m trying to read those as well.
C – Is it at all intimidating to play such a well-known historical figure?
M – I was completely intimated! I still am! I think I will remain in a state of continual intimidation until the day the show closes. I never thought I would be smart enough to play a man with a brain like Lewis. Once I started working on the role I quickly realized that you can’t play a man’s brain. You play someones heart and soul. The more I read about Lewis in his younger years, uncovering events and people who had critical influence on his development, the more I began to understand him. He’s a man, just like me. His experience brought him to his thinking. Not the other way around.
I’m an actor; I can play experience. You can’t play thought. At the Yale School of Drama our brilliant acting teacher Earle Gister was always talking about how to make your scene partner “feel” something, because you have to change the way someone feels about something before they change the way they think about it. The head FOLLOWS the heart. Not the other way around.
C – Has your performance evolved throughout the show’s run? If so, how?
M – People keep asking me how I can keep my performance fresh after six months and I have to admit I’m not having trouble doing that. I believe that speaks to the wonder of Mark St. Germain’s script and the subject matter. How could you possibly tune out while having a discussion with one of history’s most fascinating characters? A discussion about one of the most mind-bending issues known to man?
Just yesterday a line hit me like it never has before. I thought “O,M…..,that’s what that line is really about! Of course!” Also, over time, Martin and I have gotten to a place where we know this piece so well that there is an ease, a complete lack of tension on stage that I can’t remember ever feeling. I feel completely open and available to anything that may occur.
Also, now I really have the sense that when people come to see this play they are putting themselves into our hands. They truly trust us to take them on this journey and deliver them back safely by the play’s 75 minute conclusion.
I’ve always known that to be the unspoken agreement between actor and audience but I’ve never felt it more intensely then I have with this production. People are coming to see this play really out of trust. Out of faith. We’ve discovered over the months that 80% percent of our audience is there because someone else told them to come see the show. They aren’t there because of some million dollar advertising budget, or because a superstar is taking a turn on stage between movies. They are coming because people they trust told them to. They come to this little theatre that no one’s heard of to listen to two actors that most people wouldn’t recognize talk for an hour and thirteen minutes. That trust gets transferred to us. It’s an amazing feeling.
C – Can you talk a little bit about your acting partnership with Martin Rayner?
M – Martin and I are very lucky. Our chemistry just works. Plain and simple. It’s something you can’t bottle, buy or rehearse. It’s either there or it’s not. We’ve shared a lot and learned a lot from each other both on stage and off.
Freud’s Last Session runs its 200th performance this evening at 7pm at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater. Tickets are currently available for performances through Sunday, May 1st. For more info, click here.
Christa Avampato 