"Partition" at Indra's Net Theater

Indra's Net photo

Well, I thought I had written my last theater piece of the year, but last night we sneaked over to see Partition by Ira Hauptman at Indra's Net Theater. We always enjoy the shows that Indra's Net chooses, as they tend to sit at the intersection of science and philosophy and some of the bigger issues of life.

The play this time is about mathematics, but also about cultures and religions and where they all overlap at times.

The Play

The principal character in Partition is Srinivasa Ramanujan, a largely self-educated mathematical prodigy from India. He had been kicked out of college for basically refusing to study anything other than math, so as a result he had little formal training or even understanding of the standard academic approach to the subject. What he had was a deep and unique appreciation for numbers and number theory. Working alone in Madras, he produced volumes of theorems, but lacked the techniques to prove them in standard terms.

Thwarted in his attempts to study further in India, Ramanujan sent samples of his work to some of the great theorists of the day, and one, G.H. Hardy of Cambridge, invited him to come work with him. This play then largely deals with Ramanujan as a fish out of water in Cambridge, and the difficult Hardy's attempts to work with Ramanujan without destroying him.

In addition to the two mathematicians, there are three other characters in the show: Alfred Billington, a classicist at Cambridge and long-time friend of Hardy, the ghost of Pierre de Fermat, the great French number theorist,  and Namagiri of Namakkal, a Hindu Goddess. Billington serves as sort of a buffer between Hardy and Ramanujan, trying to temper Hardy's actions and appealing to his conscience. Namagiri is the inspiration for Ramanujan, the source of his theorems. And Fermat...well, Fermat is enigmatic and egotistical, even in death, but he and his theorems play an important role in the plot.

Overall it's quite an interesting script, delving into the sources of inspiration and validation, trying to reconcile Eastern and Western standards of both academics and ethical behavior.

The Production

There are elements of the production that are quite excellent. Namagiri (Aparna Krishnamoorthy in our performance) sings, chants, and dances wonderfully with the background of Indian music. She establishes the world of Ramanujan (Heren Patel) in Madras, and follows him to Cambridge via dreams. Hardy (Alan Coyne) and Billington (David Boyll) have an excellent rapport, albeit with a stylized formality. And Fermat (Marco Aponte) is a delightful figure, though a bit difficult to understand at times.

Unfortunately, this is one of the few times I felt Indra's Net failed to adapt adequately to the unique constraints of the theater at the Berkeley City Club. In particular, the space where Hardy and Billington sit and talk is set up in such a way that approximately half the audience will just see the  backs of both of their heads, always. Although there is some attempt made to adapt to this, it's really quite a glaring deficiency in the stage design and direction.

Similarly, there are times when Ramanujan is directly addressing Namagiri at her shrine where he will inexplicably spin around and talk in a different direction. It appears to be an attempt to let some of the rest of the room see the actor's face, but it comes across as just bizarre behavior. Director Bruce Coughran has generally come up with better solutions than this in previous productions in this space. I should note that it's also noticeably difficult for the actors to navigate around the set pieces in the small stage space. The pieces covered with mathematical notation are attractive, but seem unnecessarily bulky as placed. Audience members had some difficulty getting around them to get seated; same for some of the actors.

But on the whole, the actors managed to do a credible job of getting across the key bits of the script, sometimes in spite of their surroundings.

Bottom Line

I think the play itself has a lot of interesting stuff, and for the most part the actors did a pretty good job of cutting through distractions and portraying their characters. I don't think the staging and direction were nearly as successful, however.

On the whole, I'm glad I saw the show, and feel like there is enough there to make it worthwhile. It makes me wish I had seen the original production, at Aurora Theatre Company, some years back. I wasn't tuned into Aurora back then, apparently.

In any case, it's a good play with some good acting performances. I think you can get by the staging issues and get some value out of seeing the play.

Partition runs through January 14 at the Berkeley City Club.

"Darwin in Malibu" at Indra's Net Theater

Indra's Net Theater photo by John Feld

And now for something completely different.

Being a scientist by training (among other things), I have a weak spot for play about science and scientists and the ideas that exploring the scientific world leads one to. As luck would have it, Berkeley has a theater company dedicated to just such plays, called Indra's Net Theater. They put on a science-y play or two each year, and although the productions themselves are not always at the same level as some of the other local companies, the plays are always about interesting topics.

I first stumbled across Indra's Net when they did their first show ever, a version of Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen." That being one of my favorite plays every, I obviously had to see it. And they did a credible job for a small theater with a small budget. Subsequent shows have included "Q.E.D.," a play about Richard Feynman and Physics, and "The Secret of Life," about the discovery of DNA.

The current play, still in previews (and running until January 15) is about Darwin and some of the ideas he fomented with his work on natural selection. It's definitely lighter on the science than some of their other shows, but about interesting material nonetheless.

The Play

The play is set in the present at a beach house in Malibu, California, where the late Charles Darwin (George Killingsworth) is hanging out, reading trashy novels and enjoying the scenery in the company of a young lady named Sarah (Leandra Ram), who makes banana shakes and thinks about a boy she met on the beach. They are soon visited by Thomas Huxley (Robert Ernst), one of Darwin's contemporaries and defenders, and later also by Samuel Wilberforce, an antagonist to Huxley (and by proxy, Darwin).

The three men waste little time in delving into long-fermenting disputations over the implications of Darwin's work, its meaning for religion and philosophy, and oh, by the way...why are we here (in Malibu), or anywhere at all (since we are dead)? The nature of heaven, purgatory, and hell all come up, naturally (and which of those, if any, is Malibu?).

I feel like the play has a lot of promise, and I hope more of it will come to fruition as the run continues. Since I saw a fairly early preview performance tonight, there were definitely some issues that need to get resolved.

The Production

Things start slowly, with just Sarah and Darwin in play. There isn't much action initially, and what there is doesn't make a lot of sense (negotiating over making a shake, banana or strawberry, etc.). Sarah, in particular seems rather stilted in her delivery, and doesn't really seem to get comfortable until after she sings later. She's there to be a contrast to the three old(er) men in the cast, but not, I think, in that way.

Indeed, the whole cast seems to still be getting their lines down, with lots of fluency errors and stammers that don't seem to be in character. In addition (or perhaps as a result), many of the lines are not delivered clearly, and Darwin in particular sometimes mumbles almost inaudibly (a pretty good trick in a room as small as the theater at the Berkeley City Club). The upshot of this is that the play feels sluggish throughout. My daughter described it as almost a dreamlike quality, but not in an effective way. Some of the dialogue needs to be snappy, especially some of the exchanges between Huxley and Wilberforce, who did, historically, dispute some of these matters. It seems implausible that after some hundred and fifty years, they have trouble putting their conflicting thoughts into words. So pacing needs to pick up to hold audience interest.

My whole family also had issues with the presence of Sarah: we're clearly supposed to wonder about her presence, but we all made up our minds early, and we all turned out to be right, so the big reveal about her late in the show kind of fizzles for us. Some of that is definitely a problem in the script, but if the delivery picks up the pace a bit, we won't have so much time to ponder her story. It just doesn't hold up to much examination.

Bottom Line

I don't want to spend too much time harping on production issues when I have only seen an early preview of the play. I can tell there is more to the script that we got tonight, and I can only assume that the production will mature as it goes on. There are plenty of interesting bits to the script and the material it touches on that should be really good, but it needs to be presented in a snappier fashion and with fewer pauses for us to fill in our own stories while its going on. The show needs to lead, but not let us have to much time to think about where it's leading us.

It's hard for me to know what my bottom line really is on this show, as I'm not accustomed to putting down my thoughts on a show that isn't fully baked yet. I think it has a lot of potential. It's not as funny as the blurb on the website and in the inviting emails made it sound. I hope it will get funnier as it goes on, and not get dragged down in ponderous debate instead of a grabbier cross-fire.

I'm also a little unsure about the role of Darwin. Although he is the title character, the sort of "final showdown" is really between Huxley and Wilberforce, with Darwin literally standing off to the side watching and listening. His passivity might be meant to suggest that he's come to his conclusion and is just waiting to see whether either or both of the disputants will join him there. But it's also fairly easy to conclude that he doesn't need to be there at all, and I don't think that's where playwright Crispin Whittell is trying to take us.

At the end of the night, I know where the play ended, but I'm still not sure where the playwright or the director want me to be. I hope that comes clear as the production unfolds.