New Science at Theatre for the New City

Norman, Bonny, Dana and the writer, Jessica Slote


After the show, actors, audience, and the tip of the head of Jessica, the writer


I attended a Production "New Science" at the Theatre for the New City, an 11 scene visual and aural delight based on Giambattista Vico's (1668-1744) masterwork, "Nuova Scienza" which influenced authors as diverse as Karl Marx and James Joyce. Vico proposes, "In the night of thick darkness enveloping the earliest antiquity, so remote from ourselves, there shines the enternal and never failing light of a truth beyond all question: that the world of civil society has certainly been made by humans, and that its princinples are therefore to be found within the modifications of our own human mind." Phew, it sometimes felt like that. Book by Jessica Slote, directed by Martin Reckhaus, the costumes were wonderful, the live music beautiful, the body parts creepy and the elder couple across from me who fell asleep woke to find a prop in their laps (a blanket.). My laughter embarrassed my friend Bonny but Norman started laughing first so I got the giggles and my daughter Dana was also infected. Still, with the actors including the audience from time to time I felt vindicated at a little giggle. It was fun and profound and that made it worth going out for. And the website: http://newscience2006.blogspot.com