A young mathematician and his older wife struggle to accept her fate as she slowly dies of cancer.
As you might guess since I maintain a website on mathematical fiction, I am not one of those who see math and science at one end of a spectrum with the humanities at the other end. But, many people do see it that way.
I have not seen the play, but I strongly suspect this is one of those works in which it is necessary for the person at the humanities side of that spectrum (she happens to be his former literature teacher) to teach the naive but brilliant mathematician the real facts of life.
For example, the blurb says that he is "searching for a higher level of infinity" but "loses touch with the finite–the real world." Even more tellingly, it says "She, not the mathematician, determines why love cannot be measured." Moreover, I found a quote from the play in a review which suggests that the mathematician proposed not because he was overwhelmed with love, but because he had determined that she was desperate enough to agree and would not attempt to change him. It therefore seems to me that this play utilizes the tired (IMHO) stereotypes that mathematicians are cold and that math hinders (rather than aids) in our understanding of reality.
If anyone reading this has actually seen or read this play, let me know whether my conjecture is correct. |