RPI stages philosophical duel in 'The Fly Bottle'

MAE G. BANNER , For The Saratogian 09/16/2004

TROY -- A 'Rashomon' of the brain, David Egan's play 'The Fly-Bottle' will leave you feeling as if you've been socked in the stomach, while your mind has gone thorough workout. The 90-minute play is an intellectual duel between two 20th century giants of philosophy, Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, with Bertrand Russell as a not entirely neutral mediator. Words and ideas are the weapons, punctuated with jabbing index fingers aimed like loaded pistols. The verbal arms race escalates until Wittgenstein, boiling over with irrational anger, brandishes a fireplace poker at his adversary. At least, that's how Popper recalls it. In nine well-staged, swiftly paced scenes, the celebrated 'poker incident' of 1946 at the Moral Science Club in Cambridge, England, is played out from the point of view of each of the philosophers. Of course, each account is self-serving, so the same dialogue takes on a different coloration each time it's repeated. The play, mounted with exquisite appropriateness in the auditorium of the new and very high-tech Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, continues through Saturday, Sept. 18. It is directed by Tina Packer, founder and artistic director of Shakespeare & Company, the 27-year-old repertory theater in the Berkshires, where 'The Fly-Bottle' was performed last year. The professional cast, all members of Shakespeare & Company, includes Michael Hammond as Wittgenstein, Dave Demke as Popper, and Dennis Krausnick as Russell. You don't need a course in philosophy to understand the proceedings. You may not follow the intricate arguments, but you can't escape being involved in the battle between Popper and Wittgenstein. Like many an encounter between males, it all comes down to 'mine is bigger than yours.' Packer's concise program notes clarify the antagonists' philosophical differences and also pose the play's larger questions: What drives a philosopher? Is it the desire for fame, the search for truth, or simply the pleasure of the game? And, must such rarefied thinkers give up all possibility of ordinary, civil human relationships? Are all brainiacs insufferably rude, and therefore lonely? The actors, especially Hammond, are brilliant. As Wittgenstein, the upper-class Viennese philosopher who studies language and meaning as puzzles, Hammond is a time bomb waiting to explode. Wittgenstein, chairman of the Moral Science Club, has invited Popper to be guest speaker, but he cannot bear Popper's contention that philosophy is not a set of puzzles, but rather a field of problems that can be solved by rational thought and scientific observation. Wittgenstein seethes as he listens to Popper's presentation. He mutters, 'You are wrong, wrong.' He eyes the poker that stands beside the fireplace. He begins to finger it, then to bang it on the floor. Finally, out of control, he raises the poker to attack Popper. Hammond's physical acting, his wretchedness made visible, compelled me to identify with him, even though Popper's ideas about approaching truth through a path of falsifying wrong propositions makes sense to any experimental scientist. Demke plays Popper (also Viennese, but of a middle-class family and resentful of Wittgenstein's advantages) as reasonable, but also gleeful when he 'pokes a hole' in Wittgenstein's arguments. Krausnick as the fey, silver-haired Russell, once mentor to Wittgenstein, seems to be coaching Popper in how to win the duel of ideas. In another iteration of the events, he simply seems to be enjoying the game. In yet another, Russell is ashamed that he turned from arcane mathematical philosophy to journalistic popularizing. Finally, Russell makes a point that illuminates the un-winnable war between the other two: 'We share a terrible bond with our adversaries. Each secretly fears the other is the only one who truly understands him.' For all its verbal ju-jitsu, 'The Fly Bottle' has its share of comedy, especially in its swipes at the academic life of intellectual masters and disciples. Politics shows up, too, through references to World War II-era authoritarian rulers and their wrong-headed decisions. You can't let your attention drift for even a minute during 'The Fly-Bottle.' But, if you like a thorough intellectual pummeling, played with skill and conviction, this is the show for you. 'The Fly-Bottle' continues at 8 tonight and nightly through Saturday at the Auditorium, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy on 15th Street, across from the Armory. Tickets are $15 general admission; $8 students and senior citizens. Call 276-4135 for reservations.

©The Saratogian 2004