Some people have a natural gift for doing math. Then there are those who are less numerically savvy - they learn how to do other things, like write theater reviews for their college papers. But, as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, "Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare." There's something magical about the ability of mathematics to strip away excess in the pursuit of truth, restricting itself to a limited set of essential tools as it searches for the unambiguously right answer.
"Mathematical Adventures," which opened last night in Production Workshop's upstairs space, has very little to do with math and a lot to do with thinking mathematically. Written and directed by Ioana Jucan '11 - the program says "worked out by," as though the production itself were an algebra problem - "Mathematical Adventures" confronts viewers with an abstract and schematic world that eludes them as soon as they think they've figured it out. New formulas are tried, possible solutions hypothesized, but the audience won't come up with the answer, and the play, wisely, doesn't try to supply one.
Running just over 90 minutes, the three-act play begins with Margarita (Jing Xu '10) sitting on a beat-up suitcase next to a set of wooden railroad tracks that run up the center of the stage to an open door. The first Time-Keeper (Herald comic artist Jeremy Kuhn '10) announces in drawn-out tones that we are in an "old, damp railway station" with "unwholesome toilets," and that the rail workers have gone on strike, leaving Margarita stranded on her journey.
What follows is a sequence of seven semi-connected monologues, one for each day of the week Margarita spends at the station. She recounts dreams and memories, musing on the little things people notice but rarely talk about, like the marks bed sheets leave on one's face. The stage is littered with stopped clocks, and anything that disrupts the stasis becomes a cause for alarm - Margarita starts chopping a carrot and is taken aback when she actually cuts through it.
"Being curious is like riding a bike up a hill," Margarita says at one point, and the viewers know exactly what she means because they've become deeply, deeply curious about her. In this case, though, getting to the top of the hill is a Sisyphean task. Xu acts her part as though she's holding in the biggest secret ever, and she always seems to be one step ahead of us. From what little we can tell of Margarita, she's kind of into pain, both experiencing it herself and inflicting it on others, and she clearly enjoys toying with us. At the same time, she's also very insecure. Xu deftly negotiates the interaction between these two poles of Margarita's personality, and the result is a fully realized and fascinating character.
The next two acts of the play grow increasingly abstract and difficult to untangle. In the second act, Margarita ends up in a strange romance with the second Time-Keeper (Herald editorial cartoonist Alex Yuly '12). We know they're perfect for each other when they play a thought experiment - "Think about something you haven't thought of in the last 110 seconds," Margarita commands - and keep thinking of the same things. But Margarita bridles at the idea of opening herself up emotionally to anyone else.
In the third act, Margarita and the second Time-Keeper seem to have moved in together, but she is haunted by the third Time-Keeper, played by the disembodied and authoritatively English-accented voice of Henry Peck '11. Here in particular, but also throughout the play, the sound design by John Racioppo '11 is essential. There is a constant undercurrent of noise running through the three acts, from ambient sounds to weird sci-fi squawks to a recording of "Different Trains," the minimalist composition by Steve Reich. The train station noise during the first act and the chirping birds in the second ground the surrealism in some kind of reality, keeping everything from getting too portentous without diminishing the play's strangeness.
"Mathematical Adventures" definitely takes place outside of any strictly identifiable time, which adds to the show's sense of mystery. This is a world where people still take long train journeys but also use e-mail, where the streets are narrow and winding but each house has a television - in other words, it's a lot like certain parts of Europe. In keeping with this sense of timelessness, Jucan's language is rich and a little bit antiquated - it should have a vintage. The script is full of words and concepts juxtaposed unexpectedly. People say things like "I would blush like a poppy" and "Don't leave things unfinished, or you'll go bald 10 times faster than in normal conditions."
In other words, "Mathematical Adventures" is an extended poem, a mood piece, and it's not necessary to understand everything that goes on. As theater, it serves as a pretty good antidote for shopping period stress, and, as an equation, it's a thought-provoking puzzle for the audience. Not that they'll ever figure it out - "Mathematical Adventures" intends to keep its secrets. Q.E.D.
"Mathematical Adventures" runs through Jan. 31, with performances tonight at 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., and tomorrow at 9 p.m. in T.F. Green Hall.
