William McInnes, playing the enigmatic Charles II – Newton’s patron  – with perfect comedic pomp, delivers a sombre statement that speaks to the human desire to create a legacy – ‘We all want to be remembered for something’. This statement could not have had such an impact without the crew’s incredible artistry. Steve Francis provides a subtle soundscape to articulate the light and the dark, with the soft and eerie background of a ticking clock complementing the moments when Newton would frantically calculate in silence. Francis book-ends both acts with baroque music.

William McInnes as King Charles II in Nearer the Gods (photo by Jeff Busby)

The choreography, directed by Nerida Matthaei, works well amid the basic architecture of the set, which comprises several tables and chairs on wheels. The ‘movement chorus’ of supporting actors (Daniel Murphy, Hugh Parker, Colin Smith, Lucas Stibbard, and Hsiao-Ling Tang) sweeps on and off the stage, spinning the simple wooden tables and chairs in synchronised movements reminiscent of planetary pathways in motion. The momentum of the script and all of the action we can see has been carefully considered for its allegory to the laws of motion and to the concepts of force. Not a single performer was out of place.

The most notable feature of this production is David Walters’s lighting design. This is fitting, given that the story is set at a time when the scientific nature of light was beginning to be understood for the first time. Throughout the performance, the black gloss of the walls and stage floor are used to reflect ambient low lights, smoke, and haze, but in just the right places;  the most important moments are amplified, from the hidden rainbow of colours concealed behind the stage wall to show off the reflecting telescope, to an incredible ceiling-to-floor view of the night sky, with the stars lit up like diamonds.

Lucas Stibbard, Rhys Muldoon (as Isaac Newton), and Daniel Murphy in Nearer the Gods (photo by Jeff Busby)

Nowhere was Walters’s design more effective than in the luminous spectacle that was the cosmos, as Newton sits by the small light of a fire lamp and Edmund dances around him like a planet moving around the sun, pulled and yet repelled by the gravity of the physicist’s madness and genius.

At a philosophical level, Nearer the Gods doesn’t ask questions that haven’t been posed before. But it doesn’t follow that such questions shouldn’t be asked again. Nearer the Gods is entertaining and often funny. More than that, it is always curious in its pursuits. Visually, it is a radiant spectacle.

Nearer the Gods, presented by the Queensland Theatre, continues at the Billie Brown Theatre until 3 November 2018. Performance attended: October 12.

ABR Arts is generously supported by The Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund and the ABR Patrons.