Shortly into the Complicite theater company’s “A Disappearing Number,” a professor (Saskia Reeves) delivers a lecture on mathematics. As she scribbles ever more complicated equations, you can practically feel the audience tense.
Not to worry. This math-themed, multimedia effort from this inventive company is accessible even to those daunted by basic algebra.
This Lincoln Center Festival production interweaves two stories with, yes, mathematical precision. The first, set around the time of WWI, concerns the true-life collaboration between Cambridge mathematics professor G.H. Hardy (David Annen) and Srinivasa Ramanujan (Shane Shambhu), a self-taught young Indian who dazzled the prof with ideas.
The second, less interesting (and fictitious) story line depicts the romance between modern-day math lecturer Ruth (Reeves) and an Indian-American businessman (Firdous Bamjay). Like most of Complicite’s work, the piece — conceived and directed by Simon McBurney and devised by the company — is technically dazzling and beautifully staged, using lots of elaborate projections.
But it often feels too pleased with itself, emphasizing stylistic and intellectual conceits at the expense of coherence. It’s a shame, for instance, that the fascinating story of Hardy and Ramanujan is so sketchily handled. It doesn’t help that the intimate piece is being presented in the cavernous David H. Koch Theater.
Still, it’s worth making the effort to see “A Disappearing Number” before it disappears.