By Mara Dresner

Kenneth Tigar

HARTFORD – Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud pioneered the Id, the Ego and the Superego. Writer C.S. Lewis created The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Two brilliant but vastly different men, Freud was an atheist and Lewis was an atheist who turned into a believer. Now, imagine a conversation between the two. Such is the subject of Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain, playing at TheaterWorks in Hartford, now through Feb. 23. Winner of the 2011 Best New Play Award from the Off-Broadway Alliance, the play is set in 1939 as England goes to war against the Nazis. It’s an electrifying conversation about God, love, sex, and the meaning of life; a debate between two great minds trying to solve life’s great mysteries.

In his TheaterWorks debut, actor Kenneth Tigar is Freud, having played the role previously at Geva Theatre Center. Tigar is a familiar face from film and television. His credits span the distance from Barney Miller and the Lethal Weapon movies to Boardwalk Empire and The Avengers. He has acted extensively in regional theaters, performing Salieri in Amadeus, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and Joe Keller in All My Sons, amongst others. Tigar appeared off-Broadway in Treasure Island and can be seen in last season’s Netflix series House of Cards with Kevin Spacey. He is the winner of a Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award, two Dramalogue Awards, and South Florida’s Carbonell Award; and appeared across the country in his one-man show I Must Be Mr. Boswell about the biographer of Dr. Johnson. He directed the national tour of The Gin Game with Academy Award winner Kim Hunter and is also an accomplished opera director.

Tigar grew up in the Boston area, where his mother served as secretary for 30 years to Rabbi Earl Grollman of Beth El Temple Center in Belmont, Mass.

Recently, the Ledger spoke with Tigar about his latest role.

Q. What is most challenging about portraying Sigmund Freud?

A. Everybody knows who Sigmund Freud is so it’s trying to meet people’s expectations. When you play a role like this, you want people to believe it’s really Sigmund Freud. When you’re playing any important and often revered character, it’s a challenge. In a way it’s a burden, it’s a personal burden. You have to meet a special mark that you don’t necessarily have to do when you’re playing a character that’s made up.

Q. Tell us a little about the setting of the play.

A. The play takes place as the Second World War is breaking out, right after the Polish invasion. It takes place in London as the British are about to enter the war. The Nazis knocked on his [Freud’s] door to arrest him. He managed to get away. He fled Austria immediately and came to London, and there is a discussion in the play about the Jews in Hitler’s philosophy and mind and what Hitler was doing. The Holocaust hadn’t happened yet; no one was aware of quite what going on. Everybody in the audience knows about that. The writing on the wall clearly is there in the play. The nature of evil is discussed; there is a discussion about God. It sounds very dry. It’s an extremely dramatic play. It’s an extremely funny play. It’s what’s going on in the world; it’s what’s going on in their lives.

Q. Many people will remember you from your work on the television show Barney Miller.

A. I played a number of roles but there were a couple that are rather well known. I had a chance to play a werewolf. That one is rather well known and that was great fun. Barney Miller is one of those shows that don’t really exist anymore. I’d come in and play different characters in different years. I’d do one a year; I’d play a different role each year. It was the Golden Age of Television; that kind of repertory company still existed in television. You don’t see that anymore.

One year, I had the chance to play Jesus. That was extremely interesting. In many ways, it was very similar [to playing Freud]. Everybody has a personal relationship with Jesus, whether you’re a Christian, Jew or total atheist. In order to play that, you have to be able to meet everybody’s expectations. You have to be everybody’s Jesus. That challenge was one of the greatest I’ve ever had in my life, and it’s one of my favorites.

Q. Freud’s Last Session is a conversation between two classic figures. Who else would make for an interesting conversation?

A. There was a period of time many years ago when I considered writing a play about a group of people in the ‘20s, the Bloomsbury Group, who were writers. I thought about getting the Bloomsbury Group and the people in the Algonquin Circle in New York in conversation; that would be extraordinary. I’ve been blessed to know some quite remarkable people. The man whose family I lived with in the 1950s [when he was on the high school exchange program] was not a famous man. Even though he never talked about it, he was part of the Underground Railroad, getting Jews out during the war, and he survived. He was one of the most extraordinary people I’ve known. He changed my life. To have people like that and great thinkers and talk to each other would be wonderful. To get these people together, the world changers, the idea changers, the life changers together on stage would be wonderful.

Freud’s Last Session runs through Feb. 23 at TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl Street, Hartford. For more information call (860) 527-7838 or visit theaterworkshartford.org.