It’s the mid-eighties in a classroom somewhere in Nova Scotia, and a prepubescent Jacob Zimmer is puzzling over the list his teacher has just handed him. “The Seven Scientific Revolutions,” reads the title, followed by this:
1. The Gutenberg Revolution
2. The Copernican Revolution
3. The Newtonian Revolution
4. The Industrial Revolution
5. The Darwinian Revolution
6. The Nuclear Revolution
7. The Information Revolution
Young Mr. Zimmer tucks the sheet of paper into his binder to ponder at a later date.
Flash forward a decade and a half. It’s 2009, and that date has arrived. Mr. Zimmer is no longer an East Coast theatre nerd. He’s an actor and director in Toronto’s theatre scene, and he’s decided that the time has finally come to explore the list of scientific movements that some old lady in Nova Scotia deemed most relevant to the progress of the human race. Armed with his yellowing eighth grade list, a cracker-jack cast of talented young Toronto actors, a slew of whiteboards and jiffy markers, and at least fifty bucks worth of dollar store merchandise, Zimmer and friends will attempt to explain how science has delivered humanity to its current state.
This is the premise of Dedicated to the Revolutions, a “performance of the seven scientific revolutions someone said changed the world, and their effects on our lives.” It’s the latest creation of Small Wooden Shoe Theatre Company, and runs from March 31st to April 12th at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. The piece, which has evolved over several years and was co-written by the entire cast, is less a scientific history and more an artistic exploration of the nature of progress. Sometimes a play, sometimes a lecture, Dedicated to the Revolutions has singing, dancing, long-division, and even a little bit of jump-rope.
All of the actors play themselves, and the production has an organic sparseness that almost makes you wonder, is it theatre? It’s a bare-bones, direct approach to performance that challenges the traditional definitions of theatre, but it avoids becoming too dry or deadpan thanks to the natural animation of the actors, and the fascinating nature of the subject matter they’re addressing.
None of the cast or crew has a background in science (though cast member Frank Cox-O’Connell is proud of his high school biology credit), and Zimmer will be the first to admit that the list of “Revolutions” is anything but comprehensive. “Biology is missing completely,” he says over beers in the Buddies in Bad Times bar, “and medicine. It’s a fairly physics-heavy list, and it’s based primarily on a handout I got in school.”
Instead of offering a realistic overview of scientific progress, Dedicated to the Revolutions is the creative interpretation of how change occurs. In one of the opening scenes the following words appear projected onto one of five white boards distributed around the otherwise fairly empty stage: “Some people say that progress is the cumulative effect of wealth, science, and political freedom. Is this how things are supposed to get better and better?”
Everything that follows seems to be answering that initial question: do these scientific discoveries equal progress? The cast engages the audience with an array of surprisingly catchy songs and pseudo-scientific demonstrations to ferret out the solution. To illustrate the information revolution, they construct an absurdly elaborate five-way tin can phone system spanning the length and width of the theatre to reveal the complexities of modern communication. To demonstrate time, actor Evan Webber must skip faster and faster as two others maniacally spin the rope in an Einstein-induced version of recess playtime.
Dedicated to the Revolutions asks a lot of questions that it doesn’t overtly answer, and in a way, that’s the point. I left the theatre still pondering how the Internet crosses the ocean, but then I went home and looked it up, and now I know (underwater cables!). The play never really responds to it’s own initial inquiry, “Is this how things are supposed to get better and better?” But it certainly tries, and with such thoughtfulness and creativity that the answer doesn’t really matter. It’s enough that the question was asked.
Directed by Jacob Zimmer and Ame Henderson, produced by A Small Wooden Shoe. To April 12. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street, Toronto. www.smallwoodenshoe.org. Illustration (above) by Soltron.
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