A Disappearing Number

Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay                                              

until December 2

Bookings: (02) 9250 1999

What does zero and infinity mean to you? As a child I would lie awake for hours, tossing between cool, clean sheets, after hearing a Sunday sermon attempt to address the step into infinity. After all, just how long is that? I suspect we all come to our own understanding of the inevitability of our death and this incredibly moving and powerful work succeeds in offering solace as well as illuminating the world of mathematics – yes maths – as a source of beauty and passion as well as obsessive strangeness.

At its core is the true story of the relationship and unlikely collaboration of two mathematicians around the time of the First World War. G.H. Hardy was a gay, charismatic Fellow of Cambridge University’s Trinity College and after receiving a letter from a man identifying himself as an all but anonymous accounts clerk in Madras and recognising his mathematical gifts, he promptly invited him to England. Hardy, to his credit didn’t bin Ramanujan’s letter and when he became even more aware that he was in the presence of a mathematical visionary, he worked with him not against him. In fact, Hardy described their intellectual kinship as the one great romantic incidents of his life.

UK company Complicite (formerly Theatre du Complicite) is back in this country after an absence of more than a decade but it has been well worth the wait. Conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, one of the most inspiring theatre artists of the past 25years, what is for many an alien subject matter has been invested with deep emotion and realised with virtuosic theatre craftsmanship. All elements – text, design, lighting, music and of course, performance – are elegantly integrated and the two-hour show flows beautifully. Using more multimedia than in past shows I’ve seen, Complicite, while technically meticulous, still place the actor at the centre of the action. You are always aware of the human body within the images and so the media never becomes a distracting backdrop.

They may not return for another ten years, so I urge you to steal a ticket if necessary.

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