Trying to explain the attraction of an elegant equation to her mathematically illiterate husband, lecturer Ruth Minnen wonders, ‘Don’t we call something beautiful simply because it outpaces us?’ It is an exquisite line, which also goes someway to explaining the success of Complicite’s uniquely inquisitive piece, A Disappearing Number. This is not a play of explicitly ‘beautiful’ moments, but one that finds its beauty in layering meaning up meaning, finding rhythm from initial chaos. To adopt the mathematical lingo so intrinsic to this piece, A Disappearing Number is a convergent equation of exceptional complexity; a piece of theatre that uses repetitious patterns, in terms of its imagery, dialogue and music, to create a show that does no less than reflect the mutual arbitrariness and perfect design of love, loss and life.

The fact the play gathers in meaning as it progresses does mean it requires a certain level of investment. One has to work hard to stay engaged with each separate component of this sprawling equation, in order to find the answers. Put the work in and this play will provide bountiful rewards, a feast of ideas and images to feast on for weeks. Sit back, however, and this production doesn’t quite have visceral punch to keep the disengaged, engaged and could prove a slightly grating, mystifying affair.

There is a lot to take in. The action cuts back and forth between two relationships, which straddle both ends of the 20th century and the globe. The principal and most compelling relationship is between mathematics lecturer, Ruth Minnen (a ridiculously likeable Saskia Reeves) and American-born Indian Al Cooper (Firdous Bamji in a gentle, emotionally tangible performance), who works in the Futures Market. It is their relationship that pins this piece together and the warm, easy chemistry between actors Minnen and Cooper provides the heart for what could have been an overly-intellectual piece.

Their relationship is developed in fits and starts, with the significance of early encounters deepening as the play motors forward. Yet, despite the delayed anticipation inherent to any chronologically skewed play such as this (a la Pinter’s Betrayal), the scenes between this unlikely duo are easy to latch onto from the start. Reeves’ Minnen is such a convincingly devoted and inspired lecturer that her scenes have a certain ecstasy, even before love-interest Cooper arrives. As Minnen talks her ‘students’ (us) through a tricky equation, she drops into an almost trancelike state and when she arrives, flushed, at the proof, it feels a bit post-coital. The sexiness of these courtship scenes is kicked off by a maths lecture and this connection between knowledge, love and ecstasy is maintained throughout.

All the themes are interconnected in a profoundly rich manner. No scene exists in isolation; rarely is one argument or image established in one scene that is not reflected or distorted in the next. Complicite spends an awful lot of time in rehearsals just ‘playing’ together and the consistency of the ideas bubbling behind this otherwise abstract piece attests to this conscientious process. The entire show throbs with collective meaning and would disintegrate should any scene, any second, be removed from the whole.

There is no spare space or time here. The scenes slide smoothly into each other, their flow aided by a hanging screen, which allows the actors to ‘exit’ underneath it (without ever really leaving the stage) and the scene’s backdrop to change in a flash. This exceptional fluidity is not just a characteristic of the scene changes: it applies to every level of the show. A character starts speaking and another, recorded voice takes over, as the actor on stage continues to mouth his speech. Ramanujan, the infamous Indian mathematician around whom the second plot thread rotates, begins to work and his fevered calculations are taken up by a musician, whispering strange rhythms into a microphone. One character starts to recount a scene, only to be usurped by a stronger image; a location flashes onto the screen and a character acts out the scene as it ‘actually’ happened. This imperceptible break between scenes, characters and time zones edges elegantly reflects the show’s themes,  emphasizing the continuity between the past and the present, the synonymy between the present and the absent. 

The only time this interconnectedness slips is during the scenes involving esteemed mathematician Ramanujan (played with beautiful humility by Shane Shambhu) and Cambridge don GH Hardy (David Annen). There is possibly too much story to tell in this segment and the need to relate facts slightly impedes Complicite’s theatre, which is always at its best when most implicit. Complicte‘s theatre gets under the skin by stealth - not injection.

Shambhu has a feral but gentle presence as the fiercely talented but untrained mathematician Ramanujan and it is fascinating to hear about his journey from India to Cambridge and his extraordinary collaboration with Hardy - but it all feels a bit rooted in the real. The scenes never quite find the magic moments in between reality, with which this play is so persistently concerned. The most curious, effective moment involving Ramanujan comes near the end, when the mathematician returns to his homeland, against a backdrop of Indian dancing. There is a curious symmetry to this dancing – as if the arms are following the body’s own internal equations – which suggests a fascinating connection between Ramanujan’s way of thinking and his cultural heritage.

Other ostensibly small moments create equally seismic effects. Having decided to have a baby together, Ruth and Al look outside to discover it is snowing, and the stage streams with endless, falling white numbers. It is a wonderful reflection of the couple’s cohesion: their decision to share their lives is reflected in a moment of beauty that speaks to both of them.

Later, when Al is coming to terms with the death of his wife, all the actors line up on stage in sequence. We now understand that this line of actors represents a mathematical equation – but that this pattern of people also represents the inexorable link between past and present, the absent and the present. All the actors slowly pour sand to the floor. It is a moment of comfort and chilling despair. It reflects the order and meaning that comes from understanding the connections between numbers, people, time and space. But it also reflects the futility of it all; the idea that, no matter how many grains of sand or kernels of knowledge we gather, we will all – one day – pass from ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Till 25 September 2010