Aether is a high-energy, beautifully-presented inquiry into the mysteries of the universe. Four actors, mesmeric in each of their many roles, bring to life five stories that are connected by the restless drive toward discovery.
The show’s staging brilliantly puts every inch of its tiny venue to use in augmenting the story. A simple overhead projector doubles as an academic prop and also throws out textures that convincingly transform the space into each intended century, and setting.
A disc on the stage floor, rotating so slowly as to be barely noticeable, both reinforces the theme of cosmic motion and keeps the actors who stand upon it so subtly wrong-footed that you don’t notice their constant adjustments, but only the thrumming, freneticism their movements create. Similarly, the clever cross-cutting of voices is accomplished with such ease and precision, you don’t see the seams, but only feel the force of the effect, which is of a tale told by a hydra.
Everything, from costumes to props, is merely suggested with the smallest gesture, but the choices are unerring and deliver a stunning, consistently stylised effect that ties together the more conventional storytelling with its fantastical counterparts. And “fantastic” really is the correct word for these non-naturalistic devices. Solving the expositional problem of ensuring the audience knows that “sigma” measures statistical significance in physics with a brief burst of choreographed dance and Sprechstimme is successful, inspired, and wonderful in equal measure.
The women who play all the scientists, sceptics, and truth-seekers of the stories accomplish their transformations so completely, and at such blinding speed, they seem like shape-shifters. In a festival at which productions often bill themselves as “feminist” but only tack the same superficial veneer onto different stories, the feminism of Aether is thought-provoking. It is subversive and powerful, and baked into the very framework of the play.
The show’s only real flaw is that the script is so packed with heady ideas that it can be difficult to fully absorb one before the next demands your attention. It’s always possible to follow the sense of the tale in the moment, though, if not every esoteric connection – but these connections will stay on your mind for days afterward anyway.
Aether rewards close inspection: every aspect of the show is so well-conceived, you’ll marvel at it all the more. It is an intricate, gorgeous work, and not to be missed.
