A Disappearing Number

Play (2007)
by Complicite
Originally conceived and directed by Simon McBurney
Devised by the original company

Tabla player, Ryan Meyer; Musician, Brian Fairley

The discovery of one of the great mathematical prodigies of all time, Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), an Indian, by the noted Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy (1877-1947), is one of the fabulous tales of modern mathematics. Entirely self-taught, Ramanujan wrote Hardy from India, sending along pages of mathematical derivations, and, after serious perusal, Hardy recognized what he had in hand. With some doing, Ramanujan was convinced to come to Cambridge for a spell, where his reputation grew. Unfortunately, his life was short and he was dead of tuberculosis by his mid-thirties.

This amazing story of an encounter with genius might easily have stood on its own, but this constructed drama, originally conceived by the originally France-based, then Britain-based, dramatic troupe Complicite, under Simon McBurney’s direction, adds a contemporary love story featuring a British woman mathematician who falls in love with an Indian hedge fund guy. A lot of explanation about her fascination with Ramanujan’s discoveries and with mathematics in general goes into feeding this melodramatic add-on. Much mathematical talk about numeric series forms the text of this secondary plot, some of which is interesting and some of which is clearly for show. If the function of the secondary plot were to really highlight something about Ramanujan and to keep the focus on his story, the play would have been more successful.

I have the feeling that the original production by Complicite was wilder and more improvisational, which probably worked better for its conglomeration of narratives. Restaged here, what comes across is a constantly shifting collage of scenes, not quite sure of where it’s going or what it’s up to. The stuff about Ramanujan and Hardy is touching and interesting, but it gets short shrift in the course of this two hour production (without intermission) that seems to dwell endlessly on other things.

That said, the Central Square Theater has done an outstanding job of mounting interesting productions about characters and issues in the history of science, and, in particular, has wrestled nobly with the issue of women in science. This play clearly attempts to do that and the theatre is to be highly commended for its ongoing mission to explore these worthy arenas.

Elaine Vaan Hogue, who directed the truly excellent Imagining Madoff at the New Rep last season, has opted, in this production, to try, desperately, to keep things moving. In the periods when the play is in its narrative frenzy, screens constantly fly up, revealing one character or another. But there are doldrums, and when they come characters appear to stand around on the stage with almost nothing happening. I wondered whether this seemingly intentional attenuation of action were meant to suggest something about the eternity of mathematics. If so, it didn’t conjure that for me.

The script just seemed disjointed, but when, after the fact, I realized that this was a workshop product by a troupe, the sense of how it might have seemed completely original, in its wild and daring disjointedness, struck me. And it also made me think that such productions, conceived and produced spontaneously, are best left to the ephemeral rather than to the eons.

The acting seemed fine, but it was hard, in the midst of this jumble, to really get much of a sense of any of the characters.

The best parts of the show, as far as I was concerned, were the several choreographed numbers in which the cast essentially did Indian group dances. Accompanied by the very competent musical duo, including tabla player Ryan Meyer and Brian Fairley, these scenes really brought the stage alive. It didn’t have all that much to do with Ramanujan per se, but it gave nice cultural context, and it was beautiful. Had there been more of that, and more of Ramanujan and Hardy, this would have been a better play.

– BADMan