HARD PROBLEM (NT Live)
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Hytner
CAST: Anthony Calf, Vera Chok, Jonathan Coy, Damien Molony, Lucy Robinson, Parth Thakerar and Olivia Vinall (as Hilary)
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes
RATING: ****
Someone once remarked that with a Tom Stoppard play, you spend the first third wondering what this is about, then start to find a slight foothold and in conclusion, you usually play along because you’ve got it.
But then, the thing with Stoppard is that he shoots at you so swiftly with his thoughts and words, that even the Guardian reviewer, a Stoppard scholar, said that one viewing wasn’t enough to get all the nuances and references.
That’s absolutely true. Dealing with ideas as encompassing as consciousness, coincidence or randomness, computers and their impact and the list runs on so fast, you have to focus. And as you walk out of the theatre, you could simply turn on your heels and see it again.
It’s fun, even when most of the time, you’re hanging onto a thin strand of understanding. You’re completely engaged or you might as well leave as you try to follow the path of Stoppard’s mind. In many ways, he’s very accessible and you feel that the play is totally in your grasp. It’s also director Hytner’s intent to make it accessible. Stoppard has embedded all these ideas and theories in real people with real problems – the hard problem, in fact.
It starts at high speed with Hilary (see interview), a psychology researcher at a brain science institute, who is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question at work, where psychology and biology meet. If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness?
One can only take a deep breath at that and stay with the characters who move in and out mostly around Olivia like bees to a honey pot. She’s the one with the most perplexing questions and the one who doesn’t let the others off the hook. Her emotions always come to the surface, sometimes to her detriment.
It’s intriguing to see the actors bring their characters to life because rather than dealing with emotions, they’re talking ideas and issues.
It’s theatre of the mind yet what is always so intriguing about Stoppard is that he manages to get to the heart of human emotions, to make us laugh while scratching our heads and to engage in intellectual gymnastics at a pace that’s quite racy. In the end, you’ve seen some of Britain’s hottest stage talent with the gutsy Vinall leading the pack, Stoppard’s latest and the outgoing artistic director Hytner’s last production on his watch. Don’t miss it.
• Saturday, Sunday, next Wednesday and Thursday at Cinema Nouveau.