This new play by Tom Stoppard benefited well from advanced ticket sales but, by general consent, it did not live fully up to high expectations.
The play centres upon a research psychologist and is used to rehearse the age-old argument of whether we are 'just' a complex computer functioning according to a huge algorithm or whether our consciousness jumps us clean out of that pond. Overlayed with this materialist debate is whether we are simply the product of evolution or whether there is more to it than that. Transcending all this detail is, of course, the issue of whether there is a god/God of some sort that is necessary to explain our existence and our consciousness.
I found the arguments presented in a way that was easy to follow and I kept my attention/concentration throughout the 100 minutes. However, at the same time, I found all this earnest debate rather irritating as it felt so contrived and obtuse to deal with 'The hard problem' in a play rather than an essay. Still, it undeniably 'made one think', at least for 100 minutes!
On the other hand, the dramatic vehicle for this intellectual exercise was less satisfactory. The focal character worked for a research institute funded by a hedge fund manager. She was missing very much the daughter she had borne and had adopted some ten years before. The moment it was let drop that the hedge fund manager's daughter was adopted, we knew where we were heading. The same went for her boss's attempt to have a shag in Venice with her. Perhaps the adopted daughter was a chance to say something about nature versus nurture - with the inherited niceness winning through; perhaps the Venice incident was a chance to add comment on the overarching power of the sex drive. Whether so or not, the plot felt a bit thin.
So overall, the critics' median rating of three seemed to me about right.
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