Aether
The universe, Emma Howlett reminds us at the outset of her dense, intellectually fizzing play — fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe and now running at Jermyn Street Theatre — doesn't care about us. Four particles take to the stage and announce as much: we’re specks, briefly conscious, adrift in something incomprehensibly vast and strange. A wheel is spun. Who will each particle become?
Aether is framed as a lecture: the audience are the pupils handed whiteboards and asked mid-show to sketch Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe. Within that conceit we follow a patchwork of vignettes that juxtapose and intercut across time, gender, discipline and cosmos. The cast morph via accents, physicality and drawn-on moustaches into a procession of real women who wrestled with the universe's secrets: Hypatia, the philosopher murdered in 415 AD for her pagan scholarship; Vera Rubin, whose evidence for dark matter was denied recognition; Adelaide Herrmann, the illusionist who took over her husband's act after his death and became one of the most celebrated performers of her age. Each figure, beyond the play's broader comment on sexism in STEM, has been chosen to chart the continued cost of curiosity. Whether the play always makes that case clearly enough amid the chaos is a different matter (pun intended).
Aether finds its footing in its character-driven moments rather than its themes. Gemma Barnett is dazzling across multiple roles — most searingly as Hypatia before her death— and...
