Arthur Meek’s bold new play Collapsing Creation explores the courage of a visionary who must battle his conscience and soul to change the world – and find the strength to face the fallout.
Starring Peter Hambleton as Charles Darwin and Catherine Downes as his devout wife Emma, Collapsing Creation is a heartfelt and fascinating account of what happens when ideas, faith and reason collide.
Commissioned by the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution as part of worldwide celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s masterpiece: On the Origin of Species.
For every Saturday throughout the season there’s a free lecture series about Darwin and Evolution. The first lecture is this Saturday (7 Nov) at 6pm, featuring Dr. Hamish Campbell from TePapa and GNS speaking about ‘Darwin’s Inspirational Voyage’.
All lectures are free and you can come even if you’re not attending that evening’s performance.
Review after the jump
When I was offered the chance to review Collapsing Creation I thought: Darwin + theatre = an evolution musical. Something like this, I imagined:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg]
Thankfully, it was not.
Around the world there is the growing trend of Sci-Blogs, written by actual scientists. While they cover all aspects of science, many of them have a recurring theme of battling religion. Some are militant and enjoy picking fights; others just want to be left alone to do their work without being yelled at.
Collapsing Creation is the story of where all of the creation vs evolution debates really began. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species did not take long to inflame the already batter theocratic-based scientific community when it was published in 1859. The kettle had been boiling for a long time.
Over 30 years earlier Gideon Mantell had discovered Iguanadon and instantly began a battle with Geologist and Zoologists because it was not believed that every animal that currently existed always had and that nothing had ever gone extinct. And of course Galileo had a similar experience with his discoveries. Incredibly strange ideas then that we now take for granted: the earth revolves round the sun; man evolved from more primitive forms; etc.
Collapsing Creation is peppered with these references to long discredited ideas. The Biblical flood for example was an explanation for many geological phenomena. Naturally they are played for cheap laughs, but these were serious barriers at the time.
Proving a theory wrong isn’t hard to do (on a particular scale) but when the theory is based on a magic fairy who lives in the sky and grants wishes, then it gets harder. You have to become a battering ram, or a bulldog, like Alfred Russel Wallace (portrayed in the play as a conglomeration of multiple characters. The same is done for Robert FitzRoy, who becomes all of Darwin’s opponents.
As the title implies, this play is Darwin’s many years of scientific work, correspondence and debates collapsed into a few scenes in the Darwin household. Naturally because this is supposed to be entertaining the base of the story is the relationship between Darwin and his wife, Emma Darwin.
Sadly this relationship boiled down to her constantly telling Charles to stop his work for his health. Darwin suffered from an unknown illness for many years, in the play this manifests as loud tourettes-like outbursts and strange string music (and the music as a whole was the worst part of the play).
On the whole this is a nice scientific short play that will hopefully encourage people to find out more about one of the greatest scientists.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Well said HG.
It’s definitely worth a look.
Arthur Meek’s script was thoroughly researched, thought-provoking and entertaining….and the fact the show was early so we could watch the fireworks, most appreciated.
Great review Big H. The script was pretty impressive. I hate plays but love science, and this play was sincere enough for me not to hate it. I’d love to go to the lectures.
The play was not well researched and weak on too many points. The science was okay but the depiction of Darwin the man and of Emma were way off mark.
There were many anachronisms (Malaysia did not exist until the 1950s, Sarawak is not an island, expressions such as “driving me up the bloody wall”) and many many more.
The script was weak, the acting often stitled
and Hambleton as Darwin was miscast – far too vigorous and nimble, he was simply not credible as a sick man. His sporadic bursts of something – clutching his mouth and sliding onto a sofa – seemed utterly at odds with Hambleton’s energetic Darwin.
The character of Emma was very poorly drawn and the relationship between them portrayed in a very cliched, sometimes embarrassing way. Downes was not a sympathetic Emma, she was miscast.
Having tea on the floor? Emma reciting to him the names of the children they had lost or were sick, as if Darwin could not remember? The words Meek put into Emma’s mouth would never have been ones she would have uttered; her theological understanding in this play was represented mostly by her reading from the Bible and not by her own words and arguments which she did have with Darwin.
There were so many notes that rang falsely in this play that it added up to quite an annoying evening. My friend and I both went expecting more but ended up disappointed. Would not recommend.