Nearer the Gods

David Williamson

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781760622879
• eBook ISBN: 9781760623241
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Australia's most well-known playwright returns with a sweeping historical drama.In Nearer the Gods, David Williamson brilliantly recreates Sir Isaac Newton's battle with the Royal Society to prove his astonishing universal theory of gravity.'Australia's most enduringly popular social comedy writer. [His work is] keenly observant and satirical.'-Sydney Morning Herald

ACT ONE

ACTOR: I’m about to play Sir Isaac Newton. We’re taking you back to the late seventeenth-century England.

He takes off his wig.

We won’t be wearing the type of clothes they wore. Those of you who prefer period accuracy—

He points to his costume.

—you’ve got about thirty seconds to savour the detail.

King Charles the Second is on the throne. The monarchy has been restored after eleven years of austere Puritan rule under Oliver Cromwell.

The great English universities taught that the ancient Greeks had discovered everything of importance. They hadn’t.

In Europe, Galileo and Kepler had established that the planets revolved around the sun, but no-one knew why.

The answer to that question fell to Isaac Newton. He ultimately gave us the greatest leap in knowledge of the natural world we’ve ever been gifted.

But as you’ll see, it almost didn’t happen.

He indicates the action about to unfold.

MARY HALLEY, 24, a spirited and pretty young woman, enters the parlour of their small but neat house in Islington, London, with a letter in her hand. Her husband, EDMUND HALLEY, 26, a handsome and urbane young man, looks up from some mathematical calculations he is doing at his desk. The year is 1684.

MARY: A letter for you.

HALLEY: Delivered by whom?

MARY: A royal equerry in a grand coach. It’s from King Charles.

HALLEY bounds up from his desk, takes it and rips it open.

So?

HALLEY: He’s coming to the Royal Society. He’s requested that I be there. Along with Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke.

He looks at MARY.

Along with Wren and Hooke?

MARY: Why so surprised?

HALLEY: They’re big fish, Mary. The biggest in the Society.

MARY: You’re not exactly a minnow yourself. When you came back from the South Seas the king granted you a personal audience.

HALLEY: I thought he would’ve forgotten.

MARY: You create more of an impression than you think, Edmund. As you finally realised when we first met.

HALLEY: I was surprised.

MARY: What surprised me that night was that you seemed blind to the fire storm of fluttering female eyelids all around you.

She smiles and pats him.

Your modesty is endearing, my love, but it can also be irritating. You received the invitation because you deserved it. [Indicating the letter] Does he give a reason for his visit?

HALLEY: [reading] ‘To inform him of our work in areas which might interest him.’

HALLEY looks at MARY who raises her eyebrows quizzically.

Inside the members lounge of the Royal Society, London, two men are discussing exactly the same letter from the king. They are ROBERT HOOKE, 49, highly intelligent, but forceful, opinionated, egotistical and argumentative. He looks across at his friend and colleague SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN, the well-known mathematician and architect, who is holding a similar letter from the king to that which HALLEY has received. WREN is also highly intelligent, but wry and balanced, always prepared to see the best in others.

WREN: ‘To inform him of our work in areas which might interest him’?

HOOKE: My recent work on the modes of vibration of glass plates would surely be of great interest.

WREN: [wryly] Certainly, but let’s first ask what His Majesty would like to know.

HOOKE: [prickly] My work wouldn’t be of interest?

WREN: [always the diplomat] Of course, Robert. Of course,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Playwright’s Biography
• David Williamson: The Later Plays
• First Production
• Characters
• Nearer the Gods
• Copyright Details