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God and Stephen
Hawking, by
Robin Hawdon Robin Hawdon's God and Stephen Hawking is an ambitious project charting the life and theories of the man who is popularly held to be the greatest scientist of our time. To Hawdon and director Jonathan Church's credit, a great deal is achieved by a small cast of only four. The production follows Hawking's personal development and physical deterioration from his university years onwards, detailing his relationship with his first wife, Jane, and his determination to keep his terminal illness at bay. As well as exploring Stephen Hawkings the man, the play makes a great deal of Hawkings the burgeoning scientist. The portrayal of the young Hawking as a physics student at Oxford is as amusing as it is engaging. Hawking's off-the-cuff remark to his tutor that "Newton hit the ground with rather a dull thud himself" is typical of the young man's wit and studious irreverence. When castigated for not even taking notes, the young Hawking is quick to reply that you "should only copy stuff out of textbooks if you are sure they are right." The portrait of Hawkings as a PhD student of cosmology at Cambridge, unsure of what to base his thesis on and despairing that far greater minds than his have already covered everything gives a pathos to his character. It also acts as an effective foil to his later, more confident self who explains his immense theoretical discoveries to the audience and finally confronts God with his scientific belief that there is no need for a Creator and his optimism about a possible Grand Unification Theory. Hawking is not the only noteworthy character in this play. Teresa Gallagher gives a moving and convincing performance in the role of his first wife, struggling to care for her invalid husband and maintain her own identity in the shadow of his brilliance. The impressive list of characters also includes Newton, Einstein, Pope John Paul, the Queen and God, all played by Robert Hardy. This stretching of Hardy's resources gives the play a unity which interestingly ties in with Hawking's own involvement in the Grand Unification Theory. Unfortunately, although Hardy's portrayal of Einstein is delightfully lively, he plays his other characters with little variety - and I remain unsure about the idea of God in a suit and tie. The idea of having God as an onstage character does, however, work in this production, and a sense of His omnipotence is gained without a sense of distance. However, one might have hoped that such an all-powerful being would have a firmer grasp of His lines at points. God and Stephen Hawking is worth going to see, although its ambitious nature does mean that one must be ready to swallow rather a lot of scientific theory. However, it must be said that the play's best feature is the way in which Hawdon has attempted to intertwine science and the arts with a success few have found. Ruth Alexander, 30 / 8 / 00 |
