London - The Barbican Main House - 5 Sept to 6 Oct 07 - 14:30 (16:30); 19:45 (21:45)

The beauty of numbers, and the quest for it throughout the ages, drives the narrative. It links Indian prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan - brought to Cambridge in 1913 by mathematician GH Hardy - with the contemporary business-boom in India, an Englishwoman collapsing on a train, a man who mourns his dead lover, a BT call-centre, with concepts of immigration, alienation, faith, flesh, and even of reality itself.

Stylistically, Complicite brings together all its signature techniques of revolving screens, and live-action replay, shadow, dance and movement as it condenses several eras onto one stage at the same time. These elements are perhaps meant to reinforce that this is only a theatre, and that the actors are only actors, as is said while one pushes aside the scenery, and fiddles with the frequency of another's microphone to alter her voice while she speaks. However, his point dissolves before the scattered sweetness of Ruth, a maths lecturer, and her relationship with businessman Al, played with wit and pathos against the backdrop of numbers, of a reality of ideas more enduring than the physical universe, and of the pain, sorrow and consolation which that physicality produces. 'With you', as Ruth tells Al, 'I can imagine a place where being phosphate of calcium is enough.''

The 8-strong cast fuse with a set by award-winning designer Michael Levine and music by Nitin Sawhney - 'the only real thing on stage except for the maths', as the narrator puts it. A single discordant note in two hours is a Bollywood-style interlude of dancing flight-attendants.

This devised piece is an inventive and lyrical exploration into a world both complex and profound and invites us, with all the tricks that a theatre can muster, to take a look into infinity.

Cast Credits: (alpha order): David Annen. Firdous Bamji. Paul Bhattacharjee. Hiren Chate. Saraj Chaudhry. Divya Kasturi. Chetna Pandya. Saskia Reeves. Shane Shambhu.

Company Credits: Conceived and Directed by Simon McBurney. Devised by - the Company. Original Music - Nitin Sawhney. Designer - Michael Levine. Lighting - Paul Anderson. Sound - Christopher Shutt. Projection - Sven Ortel for mesmer. Costume - Christina Cunningham. Associate Director - Catherine Alexander. Literary Associate - Ben Power. Artistic Collaborator - Victoria Gould. Production Manager - Katrina Gilroy. Company Stage Manager - Cath Binks. Technical Stage Manager - Rod Wilson. Deputy Stage Manager - Perrine Desproges. Assistant Stage Manager - Ian Andlaw. Associate Sound - Kay Basson. Associate Projection - Finn Ross. Projection Technician - Tim Perrett (Jono O'Conail on tour). Production Electrician - Dan Lloyd. Wardrobe Mistress - Donna Richards. Assistant to the Director - Amelia Hashemi. Costume Supervisor - Poppy Hall. Assistant Design - James Humphrey. Research - Jess Gormley. Video Editor - Mariko Montpetit. Indian Video Footage - Paul Bernays, Xanthe Hamilton, Chloe Mercier. Set, props and costumes by - TR2 Theatre Royal Plymouth Production Centre, Clearwater Scenery and Scena. Scenery - Nick Campbell, Principal Projects. Maths Consultant - Professor Marcus du Sautoy. Co-producers: Complicite with barbicanbite07, Ruhrfestspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Holland Festival, in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth. Website - www.complicite.org

END

(c) Philippa Tatham 2007

reviewed Thursday 6 Sep 07 / Barbican

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008