Insignificance explores the nature of celebrity and power, and serves as a warning of the dangers of persecution, which are ever more appropriate in our post-9/11 world. "Smallness happens, aloneness happens, but insignificance doesn't happen.". In this play Marilyn Monroe (The Actress), Albert Einstein (The Professor), Joseph McCarthy (The Senator) and Joe DiMaggio (The Ballplayer) meet in a hotel room. McCarthy tries to convince Einstein to sign over his soul, and his name, to the US government, Marilyn explains the theory of relativity to its discoverer, DiMaggio laments his wife's obsession with the psychiatrist 'Fleud', and Einstein wrestles with his guilt for helping to create the atom bomb.

Each of the characters is explored thoughtfully, giving us a very new take on Monroe and Einstein in particular. Although she lives up to her airhead image with comments like, "have you ever noticed how 'what the hell' is always the right decision?", her sentiments are complemented by those of Einstein at the end, when he claims that the secret of the universe is not to waste time looking for it. However she also explains Relativity complete with balloons, toy cars and trains, and we are totally transfixed by Stockley's performance. Equally impressive is Le Prevost's understated performance as Einstein. He is like a quirky favourite grandpa, utterly knowledgeable, and yet left wandering around searching for his shoes. McCarthy at first seems a little too funny to capture the fear created by his witch-hunts, however such doubts are set aside as we see him knee the pregnant Marilyn in the stomach. DiMaggio is very funny in his ignorance, and touching when he offers to give up the stupid-ness he loves in order to 'smart up' for Marilyn.

The set is very pleasing, with the realistic hotel room set against a silver and star-studded background. And the acting, within slightly cartoon-like limits, is accomplished and charismatic. The play knows when to laugh at itself, and we can all enjoy a slight intellectual smugness when we recognise references to Schrodinger's cat, The Crucible and the neutron bomb, yet despite this, Insignificance never slips into self-indulgent intellectualising. At times it is a little slow; I did however leave the theatre impressed by an intelligent piece of drama which brought a refreshing humanity to its celebrity subject matter and explored issues of power on a personal, physical and state level.

Katie-Anne Berk