"A Disappearing Number" and "Perfect European Man"
Two plays in two days in two very different settings, the first attended yesterday with LW and friend S, the second today with TH. Appearing as part of Lincoln Center Festival was Theatre Complicite's A Disappearing Number in its New York premiere. High-tech set, including video and direct projection, fluid stage transformation, polished acting, cross-cultural interactions spanning UK, India and the USA. The production, conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, moved like a film. It spliced the life of mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan (Chetna Pandya) with a contemporary romance between a math professor Ruth Minnen (Saskia Reeves) and a futures trader Al Cooper (Firdous Bamji). It meditated on the different kinds of mathematical infinity, and sought consolation for death in the idea of infinite series, or Things Are Connected When They Happen One After Another. It was also about the idea of beauty. The Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy (David Annen), who worked with Rama...