Subject: Re: [HM] Mathematics as Theater
From: Bill Everdell (Everdell@aol.com)
Date: Sat Jun 03 2000 - 00:08:59 EDT
Bruce Weber, the New York Times theater critic, put it all together for us in
a long "Critic's Notebook" article today called "Science Finding a Home
Onstage." The plays discussed are Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen," now on
Broadway, Tina Landau's "Space," which appeared at the Public Theater last
fall, David Auburn's "Proof" now at the Manhattan Theater Club, Rinne
Groff's "The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem" now at the Target Margin Theater,
Arthur Giron's "Moving Bodies" (a biography of Richard Feynman) at the
Ensemble Studio Theater, Mac Wellman's "Hypatia," now at SoHo Rep, Joshua
Rosenblum and Joanne Sydney Lessner's "Proof," a new musical (about Andrew
Wiles!) soon to be staged by the York Theater Company, and Penny Penniston's
"Now Then Again," about young physicists in love which closed on Sunday after
an extended run at the Ivanhoe Theater in Chicago (and which apparently ran
time first forwards then backwards to a single point in Act 3, reminding me
of a Feynman Diagram).
Here's an excerpt from Weber's piece dealing with Auburn's "Proof," which
ends by giving an idea of the dramaturgical problems involved in putting
math(s) onstage:
------- begin fwd -----
This flowering use of science as narrative material and scientific concepts
as metaphors for the stage is worth remarking on for several reasons. For one
thing, it provides evidence that science is re-entering the realm of popular
culture, not just in imaginative, futuristic fiction but also in other
mainstream and alternative forms: from historical reconstruction and
theoretical abstraction to fluffy romance and contemporary realism.
Why this is so is a matter for speculation. "One explanation is that it's
completely random," Mr. Auburn said in an interview, a sly invocation of a
mathematical concept in itself. But the revolution in technology is surely a
factor. The World Wide Web, e-mail, cell phones (particular favorites of
theatergoers, it seems) have all been around long enough to have saturated
public consciousness yet are still new enough to feel like magic; you don't
have to be able to explain them to use them or be impressed by their
prevalence. And it's clear that scientific discoveries, or at least their
manifestations, have entered public discourse and the acquisitive, boom-time
culture with the force of fashion. The high-minded mysteries of science
suddenly seem, um, hip.
Tapping into a societal mood has always been the theater's stock in trade,
and the emergence of science on stage is a sign of this, just as a stream of
plays about gender politics, sexual identity and AIDS have been over the last
two decades, or plays dealing with the widening gap between the affluent and
deprived. Not to say that the theater is undergoing a sea change, but writers
do seem to be taking note of a new country to explore.
"It is a technological age we're living in," said Mr. Auburn, whose
background in mathematics peaked, he said, with a B in college calculus, "and
technology is a field that produces a lot of drama. Maybe the divide between
the two cultures" - that is, the one that separates scientists from
nonscientists -- "is breaking down a little bit."
[...]
Mr. Auburn purposely shied away from equation-solving in his play -- the
proof of the title has to do with prime numbers, but what it proves is never
made explicit -- but in the opening act one character believes that another
is not mathematically savvy, and as he condescends to her he's also helping
the audience. And Mr. Auburn did have his play vetted by members of the math
department at New York University, who also visited rehearsals.
"What the cast got from them," Mr. Auburn said, "more than any specific math
information, was a feel for what the discourse is like. It isn't dry or
analytical; they were having fun, argumentative discussions about their
field, really scrapping with each other. It was surprising to the performers,
I think." In any case, he said, the focus of his play is less on math than it
is on relationships.
[...]
Not least among the satisfactions of these plays is that they add ammunition
to the combat against American culture's troubling anti-intellectualism.
Whatever the artistic achievement of these works, what each of them
accomplishes is the lesson that intelligence is not a quality that exists as
an antithesis to -- or even apart from - conscience, emotional capability or
common sense.
"It's fun to write about smart people," Mr. Auburn said. "You're not
condescending to your own characters when you write about them. You're
looking up to them and trying to do them justice."
May there be more of them.
—Bruce Weber, NYTimes, 2Jun00
---------- end fwd -------------
The same NYTimes contains a piece by Dave Kehr on the shooting of "Julie
Johnson," a new independent movie, not far way from where I live in Brooklyn.
Here's the gist of it:
----------- begin 2nd fwd ----------
[I] t was a very warm day in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and an even warmer day
inside the house where the director Bob Gosse was shooting "Julie Johnson,"
an independent feature that stars Lili Taylor, Courtney Love and Spalding
Gray.
[...]
The objective was a complicated tracking shot that followed Donna Hanover
[the recently estranged wife of the Mayor of NY —BE], playing the dutiful
academic wife to Mr. Gray's physics professor, as she opened the door for Ms.
Taylor and Ms. Love, and ushered them into a cocktail party.
[...]
"Julie Johnson," adapted from a play by Wendy Hammond, is the story of a
Hoboken housewife, played by Ms. Taylor, whose life changes radically when
she decides to enroll in a night school class, "Introduction to Computers."
"When Lili's character announces, 'I don't want to be stupid no more,' it
kicks off an unraveling that becomes the narrative arc of the picture," Mr.
Gosse said.
Julie discovers not only that she has a genius for advanced mathematics, but
also that she's been living a lie. She kicks out her domineering husband and
takes up instead with her best friend, Claire (Ms. Love).
"I grew up on the West Coast with hippies," Ms. Love said, "where if people
were gay, they were gay.
[...]
—Dave Kehr, NYTimes, 2Jun00
------------- end 2nd fwd -------------
I can't resist adding brief notice of a play by my own student, Math Olympian
Lawrence Detlor, produced here at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn for one
night on May 19. Awesomely numerate, but also literate and stunningly good
theater. My friend the playwriting teacher, who has taught playwriting here
for more than 20 years, has never seen better from her students and is trying
for a more professional production.
Bill Everdell, Brooklyn
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