Written by Alana Valentine
Nucleus is a heartfelt, character driven work exploring the intersection of science, humanity and ambition
Reviewed by Juliana Payne
Seymour Centre, Sydney
Until 15th March 2025
Tickets: https://www.seymourcentre.com/event/nucleus/
Type: Contemporary, Australian, Relationship Drama
If you like: Plays by Alan Bennett or David Williamson
Alana Valentine’s Nucleus is a powerful and deeply engaging play. With just two strongly written characters, the playwright captures the intersection of science and ambition, which is always however framed by human emotions, and not always rationally. With her signature sharp dialogue and meticulous research, Valentine crafts a story that is intellectually stimulating as well as genuinely emotional and funny.Â
The text employs the classic ‘opposites attract’ trope as a metaphor for both the science and the human story. Paula Arundell as the anti-nuclear activist is effortless and naturally instinctive in her acting abilities, she is a joy to watch. Peter Kowitz plays opposite as the scientist, carrying arguments and increasingly intimate conversations with style and grace. Valentine’s writing is both lyrical and naturalistic, allowing complex ideas about politics and power to be conveyed in a way that is accessible, moving and has a dry crackling humour that keeps it all very real. The characters are well developed, each facing their own moral struggles that find resolution in the acknowledgement of our common humanity.
Experiencing the stunning effects of the set, sound and lighting, it was no surprise to learn that it took four people to create it: Designer Isabel Hudson, Lighting Designer Verity Hampson, Sound Designer Phil Downing and Video Designer Laura Turner. With a stylised sci-fi motif soaring above, and moog synth musical interludes, we are transported to an atomic era movie set. The white circular stage also becomes a screen for the gorgeous abstract video that fleets across it like blood under a microscope or stars across a telescope. The two characters have both put themselves under the microscope, and the audience watches raptly as their hearts are laid bare.
The characters are well developed, each facing their own moral struggles that find resolution in the acknowledgement of our common humanity.
Andrea James’ direction makes clever use of the light and shade of the performance area, and keeps the pace cantering along without an interval, maintaining the dramatic tension which the snappy dialogue creates. She has the two characters circle around the space and collide with each other like hydrogen atoms in a fusion reaction, as the witty, complex dialogue lifts and carries them along.
Presented by Griffin Theatre Company in association with Seymour Centre, Nucleus is an intelligent and heartfelt, character driven production. The storytelling balances the emotional depth of its characters with the larger thematic questions it raises. Exploring themes of power, integrity, and the cost of progress, Nucleus is a highly engaging and moving work.
Theatre Thought: If the personal was political in the anti-nuclear debates of the 1960s, how much more so it is now via movements like MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and Climate Justice? And will the personal ever matter more than the powerful political and financial interests?
PLAYWRIGHT Alana Valentine
DIRECTOR Andrea James
DESIGNER Isabel Hudson
LIGHTING DESIGNER Verity Hampson
SOUND DESIGNER Phil Downing
VIDEO DESIGNER Laura Turner
DRAMATURG Dylan Van Den Berg
STAGE MANAGER Tanya Leach
CAST Paula Arundell and Peter Kowitz
