Author: Stephen Abbott

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-07-11

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0691206082

"The proof stage is the story of the unexpected collaborations and resonances between theater and mathematics and how they have evolved since the turn of the twentieth century. Toward the end of the 1800s, unsettling discoveries about alternate geometries and the mathematical infinite began to reveal that, despite its reputation for absolute certainty, mathematical truth is not immutable. At the same time, new, experimental forms of theater were rapidly developing-some inspired by these very upheavals in mathematics. Both disciplines were, and are, characterized by a quest for truth and a shared ability to investigate their respective limitations. Stephen Abbott provides the first systematic, book-length treatment of the interactions between mathematics and theater that have occurred over the last 120 years. Drawing on the author's fifteen years of experience researching and teaching a course on the subject, the book examines how the two disciplines reveal novel insights about one another. Stages of Uncertainty follows the path of playwrights that engaged mathematics such as Alfred Jarry, Stanislav Witkeiwicz, Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Felix Durrenmatt, Tom Stoppard, Micheal Frayn, and Simon McBurney. Intertwined with this history is the history of mathematics; along the way, Abbott describes the development of quantum mechanics, chaos theory, incompleteness, and alternative geometries that occurred as these plays were being written. The main arguments are that these two domains have deep resonances, including shared notions of uncertainty, self-reference, recursion, and orientation, and that theater has engaged deeply and innovatively with math for many years. Abbott reveals a unique portrait of mathematics, one that is unexpected and deeply human"--