NT Live May 3: Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem

Tom Stoppard's new play, The Hard Problem, will screen on Sunday, May 3, at the Campus Theatre as part of the ongoing National Theatre Live season.

The screening begins at 1 p.m. Doors open at 12:30 p.m. Admission is adults $15; senior citizens $12; students $10; students with ID $5. The Campus Theatre is located at 413 Market St. in Lewisburg.

The Hard Problem explores the intersection of psychology and biology, asking "If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? Is the day coming when the computer and the fMRI scanner will answer all the questions psychology can ask?"

Hilary, a young researcher at a brain science institute, is at odds with her colleagues who include her first mentor Spike, her boss Leo and the billionaire founder of the institute, Jerry. Meanwhile Hilary needs a miracle and she is prepared to pray for one.

The Daily Mail, in a five-star review, calls the play "100 minutes of brilliant brainache." In addition, four-star reviews call the production "Stimulating. Absorbing. A rich, ideas-packed work" and "Offers endless stimulation" (The Guardian); "A typically witty return for Tom Stoppard" and "An intellectually charged piece that delights" (Evening Standard).

The Financial Times says of the play, "Flecked with Stoppard's wry, ironic humour and luminous intelligence, directed with exemplary lucidity by Hytner, this is a play that, movingly, wrestles with deep questions about what makes us who we are and with the implications of materialism."

Stoppard's award-winning plays include Shakespeare in Love,Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. This production is directed by Nicholas Hytner (Othello, Hamlet, One Man and Two Guvnors) who is retiring this year after 12 seasons as artistic director of the National Theatre, during which time he saw the development of NT Live screenings.

The National Theatre season 6 is sponsored by the Bucknell University Departments of Art and Art History, Classics, English and Theatre and Dance, the Bucknell Arts Council, the Bucknell Innovation Group and the Office of the Provost.

The spring schedule concludes with Man and Superman with Ralph Fiennes on May 31. For more information on these productions, visit http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

NT Live productions, which are screened in more than 700 venues worldwide, include productions at other U.K. theatres. Cameras are brought to the theatre one evening and that live performance is seen, via satellite. U.S. theatres generally delay the broadcasts until the evening, or show the production on different days. These are the original live satellite feeds; no editing takes place between the time of transmission and showing.