Math and theatre intersect at Björklunden
By Kathy Privatt
Associate professor of theatre and drama
Reprinted from the Boynton Society Newsletter, a publication for supporters of Björklunden vid Sjön.
The quote above is from Hannah in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, a play that depicts a contemporary generation searching for information about ancestors from a previous century (who also appear in the play). Arcadia was the basis for a seminar at Björklunden in April 2001 that brought together students from the mathematics, theatre and drama, and classics departments, as well as math professor Eugénie Hunsicker; classics professor Randall McNeill; Keith Howard, a guest mathematician from Kenyon College; and myself.
The idea for this weekend germinated as Eugénie and I each began our first year of teaching at Lawrence in the fall of 1999. In Eugénie, I discovered a mathematician who was as passionate and enthusiastic about her field as I am about theatre.
Although neither of us remembers exactly how, our conversations began to include Arcadia -- a play that contains references to chaos theory, entropy, and fractals and mirrors these math theories in its structure. Math-poor as I am, I knew of the connections because I played Hannah while obtaining my doctorate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Understanding the math is crucial to understanding that role. We realized that this play offered a perfect basis for combining two departments that rarely work together.
We developed a weekend at Björklunden titled "Et in Arcadia ego: The Intersection of Math and Drama." Nineteen students voluntarily attended the weekend, and even the sign-up process offered promise of intermixing. A math major signed up in my acting class; a theatre major signed up in Eugénie's calculus class. As one would hope at a liberal arts institution, the groups never segregated themselves but truly embraced the opportunity to make new connections with fellow scholars and peers.
We began with presentations on math history to explain allusions in the script, followed by an examination of classical influences on estate gardening through the 19th century (an integral conflict in the story). We staged a scene in which the two generations appear together in a very "entropic" conclusion to the play. Keith Howard's presentation on fractals encapsulated the weekend, as he combined math formulas with aesthetic choices to create a landscape that changed according to the seasons. We hiked around Björklunden, noting examples of fractals in nature and evidence of formal gardening techniques. By the time I offered my analysis of the script's structure, noting the parallels with math theory, several students had already begun to discern those same conclusions for themselves -- and that, to me, spells success.
This splendid weekend was possible because Björklunden exists. We used its quiet and solitude to allow us to focus together. Eugénie, Randall, Keith, and I watched all weekend as theatre and math students continued topical discussions past the presentations and exercises, because they were engaged by the ideas and by each other's contributions. Björklunden became our Arcadia — a place set apart from the usual demands. Where else would I have the privilege of sharing a math student's breakthrough on a homework challenge? Where else would theatre students see math students choose to fill their free time with collaborative efforts at descriptive equations? Where else would math students share the stage with theatre students for an impromptu scene?
In Arcadia, Hannah contends: "It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in." At the risk of straining the conclusion with a lack of concrete data, I believe that none of us came out of the weekend quite the same; I know I didn't. With all my compatriots at Björklunden, I discovered that, at the intersection of math and drama, our fields definitely have something in common: we're both trying to describe phenomena so we can better understand our world and ourselves. Dramatists use plays; mathematicians use equations — but we both focus on the process, not just on an answer. Björklunden gave us the time, place, and mental space to ask the questions and indulge in that oh-so-liberal-arts desire: wanting to know.
