Searching for resonance: scientific patterns in Complicite'sMnemonicandA Disappearing Number

Abstract

After the international success of Mnemonic, Complicite have once again brought science and drama together in a new theatre piece, A Disappearing Number. Both plays place scientists in the limelight, though their "scientific" content is very different: Mnemonic was based on the discovery of a Neolithic man in the Alps, and used neurology and archeology to explore notions of memory and history; A Disappearing Number focuses on our fascination with infinity, and dramatises the "mysterious and romantic mathematical collaboration" between G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan. The two pieces are, however, remarkably similar in plot and structure, and in their common exploration of the metaphorical and theatrical potential of scientific discourse. Moreover, they both use science as a narrative tool to explore our relation to time and mortality. This review presents them in parallel and examines the particular integration of ideas and aesthetics which characterises Complicite"s work: a tireless search for connections, and a constant translation of ideas between different theatrical languages, be they verbal, visual or musical. MNEMONIC: STAGING THE LABORATORY OF MEMORY Mnemonic is a play about memory, "[h]ow we remember, why we remember, what we remember". 1 The show was first created in 1999 for the Salzburg festival, and later revived in 2002/3. Like most of Complicite"s work, it is a devised piece: the general conception came from the company"s director, Simon McBurney, but the whole team contributed to the performance text and the play then continued to evolve through the run. McBurney describes this collaborative process as a series of "collisions": This show is being made through extroardinary and intricate collisions. Collisions between the actors who have used material from their own lives and integrated it with the show. A collision with the words of John Berger, Konrad Spindler (who wrote The Man in the Ice), Anaïs Nin, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Benoit Mandelbrot (the inventor of Fractal Geometry). … Like all Theatre de Complicite shows this is a new departure. We are searching for another form to tell our stories. 2 As a result, Mnemonic is composed of many different narrative threads which echo each other throughout the show. But two main storylines stand out, and both are enquiries into the past. The first is an archaeological investigation inspired by The Man in the Ice, the story of a Neolithic body which was discovered in the Alps in 1991. Scenes from this archaeological enquiry alternate with fragments from the journey of a young woman called Alice, who travels through Europe after her mother"s death to find her unknown father. While the archaeological team gradually constructs a story of violence and flight around the Iceman"s body, Alice travels through Germany,

Pre-dicting the Past, Re-membering the Present: Theorizing Memory in Complicite's Mnemonic

“…Referring to the Iceman conference scene, in which contradictory theories on his death are presented by a community of researchers, Liliane Campos maintains that the show 'places the theatrical gaze and the scientific gaze against each other, undermining the objectivity of the laboratory by pointing out its theatricality'. 51 In the same vein, the use of a plastic curtain that divides the presentational space into different fictional spaces also underlines the theatrical character of the situations represented, while at the same time signifying the sense of conditioned or distorted perception that affects the observer's gaze and its object. 52 Characters in haze behind the plastic curtain that divides the presen tational space into different fictional spaces.…”

“…Referring to the Iceman conference scene, in which contradictory theories on his death are presented by a community of researchers, Liliane Campos maintains that the show 'places the theatrical gaze and the scientific gaze against each other, undermining the objectivity of the laboratory by pointing out its theatricality'. 51 In the same vein, the use of a plastic curtain that divides the presentational space into different fictional spaces also underlines the theatrical character of the situations represented, while at the same time signifying the sense of conditioned or distorted perception that affects the observer's gaze and its object. 52 The neutrality of what is observed is also questioned in the play by means of a constant mixture of the observer and observed: thus, McBurney, the director, becomes an actor-spectator, Virgil; 53 Virgil's body often substitutes that of the Iceman throughout the play; the tourists gradually replace the Iceman in the final scene; 54 and the spectators have become observers of their own memories and hence, in a way, are rendered participants in the play's entangled stories from the beginning.…”

Theatre, mathematics, and the aesthetics of infinity: Complicite’s A Disappearing Number

“…As Campos has rightly noticed, the stage in A Disappearing Number is divided into different parts by several screens, constantly shifting up and down and revolving around the characters, further emphasizing their separation. The scenography of the play also contributes to this sense of division; because of the screens and light effects, the characters seem to be isolated in different areas of the stage and cut off from one another (Campos 2007, 331). This division is also echoed in the play by the separations that the characters have to endure: Al is parted from Ruth, for example, due to his inability to understand her passion for mathematics, and is alienated from his past and cultural roots as an Indian.…”

“…Al's travels, in other words, take him to India but also to the other reality of numbers and equations, which helps him gradually come to terms with his wife's death. His leap into mathematics, in Campos's words, is in itself ‘going elsewhere’ (2007, 331). In the world of the play, therefore, seemingly disconnected realms form a pattern of connections in which characters located in different temporal and spatial scales interact with each other in the context of a search for truth and understanding.…”

“…There has been a rich body of research discussing and analysing the ways in which Complicite has used performance to convey the mathematical concepts that A Disappearing Number contains. Studies by Campos (2007), Abbott (2014), and Wiśniewski (2016) focus on discussing and analysing the ways in which patterns, numbers, and scientific concepts are staged in the play. These studies discuss the theatrical potential of scientific patterns in the play and decode the scientific meaning behind the theatrical strategies and dramaturgical techniques that Complicite use to convey complex mathematical ideas.…”