For the next one month, Prithvi Theatre is set on spreading mathematics mania in India. They have a good reason for taking up such a mission. Complicite, a prominent British theatre company, is travelling to India in August with A Disappearing Number. The play will have a three-day run in Mumbai before it moves to Hyderabad, coinciding with the International Congress of Mathematicians.

“A Disappearing Number takes as its starting point the story of the most mysterious and romantic mathematical collaborations of all time,” reads the introduction to the play on the Complicite website. The collaboration in focus here is that of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and his English counterpart G H Hardy, who recognised the former as a genius when others dismissed him as a crank. This is a play, Sanjna Kapoor felt, “that just had to be seen in India”. And after a great amount of persistence over the last three years, she has finally been able to realise her dream. “This play is important for several reasons—firstly because of the sheer magnificence of its theatrical form itself, secondly because it celebrates our great mathematician Ramanujan and his most fascinating mathematical concepts and takes them beyond just maths into the world today—engaging our minds and touching our hearts,” she says.

Recounting her experience of watching the play, Kapoor says, “When the play ended in the Barbican in London in 2007, I was moved to tears. With me was my aunt Felicity Kendal, who had suggested that I invite Complicite to India over 10 years ago.” Kapoor instantly felt connected to the play. Yet, she was wary of bringing such an expensive production to India. Later on, the International Congress of Mathematicians presented a perfect opportunity to get the play based on the life of an Indian mathematical genius home. And the cost ceased to be a major concern after a host of sponsors and supporters stepped in. This paved the way for Complicite’s second India tour. In 2005, Kapoor was instrumental in making the company come to Mumbai with Measure for Measure.

The greatness of A Disappearing Number lies in the way it spirals out of the Ramanujan-Hardy mathematical collaboration of 1910s and brings to a lay audience the magic of concepts like infinity and string theory—the latter being not just a theory but almost a philosophy of connectedness. Simultaneously a narrative and an enquiry, the play crosses three continents and several histories, to weave a provocative theatrical pattern about our relentless compulsion to understand.

This play, revolving around a poor Brahmin mathematician from Tamil Nadu who had no formal training in pure mathematics, draws parallels between the scientific notion of connectedness and the diasporic sense of being connected for Indians across the globe.
At present, however, the cast and the crew of the play directed by Simon McBurney, who co-founded Complicite in 1983, is stationed in New York. The shows are scheduled at the Lincoln Center Festival from July 15 to July 18. When in India next month, the play will be staged at Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts, from August 9-11 and then at the Global Peace Auditorium, Hyderabad.

MATH MAGIC
The Truth About Mathematics: Love it or hate it
Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Rajit Kapur, Shernaz Patel and others will read from books as varied as G H Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology, Stephen Leacock’s A, B & C: The Human Element, Premchand’s Bade Bhaisaab, and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.
At Prithvi Theatre July 12, 8 pm

A Mathematical Odyssey from Lewis Carroll to Stanislaw Lem
This PEN event explores how world literature engages with mathematics in delightful ways
At Prithvi House on July 10, 6:30 pm

The Story of 1
The tale of the world’s simplest number, which along with zero, saved us from having to use Roman numerals today.
At Prithvi Theatre on July 11, 11 am

The Language of the Universe
Explore the mathematics of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece; the way we tell time and the beginning of mathematics as an analytical subject.
At Prithvi Theatre on July 11, 12:15 pm

The Maths Mela
The mela that includes a math lab, film screenings, live performances and hands-on fun travels to schools and colleges across Mumbai.
The schedule will be post on prithvitheatre.org by mid-July