Theatre review: Solaris

Every time someone puts science fiction on stage the reaction seems to be wondering why it's not done more often; perhaps it's the association with big-budget movies that means nobody expects the story to work without the kind of special effects the stage can't recreate. But there's also a very pared-back side to much sci-fi, a coldly clinical world holding off the unknowable just the other side of the monitor, and that's what David Greig's Solaris taps into so well. Stanisław Lem's novel has been filmed twice but I've not seen either film, which feels like a decided advantage as Matthew Lutton's production - an Edinburgh / Melbourne / London co-production now playing the last of those cities on its tour - unfolds its mystery. A three-person team has spent two years on a space station orbiting the impossible planet of Solaris - entirely covered in ocean, and orbiting two suns, one red, one blue. The story begins as the mission comes to an end.

Psychologist Kris Kelvin (Polly Frame) has arrived in a shuttle to assess the crew and take them home, after all communications with their base stopped six months earlier. Her first shock is that the mission's leader and her former mentor, Dr Gibarian has died in an apparent suicide after contracting terminal cancer.

Her second comes after her first night's sleep on the station, when she dreams of a dead lover; when she wakes up Ray (Keegan Joyce) is alive and in bed with her. It transpires increasingly sophisticated copies of the crew's loved ones have been turning up on the station for the last six months, made out of the same material as the planet's oceans. It seems Solaris is itself sentient, and sending these avatars to communicate with the humans - Ray is the most realistic "visitor" yet, and the first to be capable of speech. Dr Snow (Fode Simbo) wants to stay on studying him, and in his video diaries Gibarian (a pre-recorded Hugo Weaving) seems almost in love with the planet even as proximity to it may be what's killing him, but Dr Sartorius (Jade Ogugua) is far from convinced the ancient intelligence is benevolent.

As for Kris, she begins tests on Ray but any pretence that her interest is purely scientific is short-lived once they begin a physical relationship OH MY GOD ARNOLD STOP THAT, WHAT WOULD JOSH SAY? and she starts to fall more in love with the Ray reconstructed from her memories than she ever was with the real thing. In the interval Ben and I were talking about why sci-fi is such a strong medium to tell mystery stories in, and I thought it's because a writer has so much more to work with - as well as plot and characters, the nature of the entire universe the story takes place in can be a mystery. That's certainly true here as not only are the visitors a puzzle to be solved, as well Solaris itself and its own sentience, but the relationship between the two as well; as Ray discovers Gibarian's video diaries and realises his true nature, he has an existential crisis as he doesn't know to what extent he's in control of his own actions or the planet's puppet.

But as well as a mystery the play is also a sad, affecting love story as well as a thriller - from the show's blurb suggesting space ghosts (sposts?) I was expecting more of an overt horror story worthy of the time of year, but while that's not what we get I was far from disappointed with the edge-of-the-seat tension Lutton's production conjures up instead. In fact Solaris is a class act all round, with Hyemi Shin's set an undoubted star of the show, a blandly generic white space that instantly conjures up the coldness of the isolated station, but one that can take on strikingly different moods as Paul Jackson's lighting reflects which of the two suns' day it currently is. There's some impressively quick set-changes while a screen comes down to show strangely ominous video of waves, and Shin injects some warmth back into the design with a slightly retro feel (notably with Gibarian's diaries being recorded on crackly VHS.)

This is a philosophical kind of sci-fi that questions whether the very existence of humans, even without them making any overt contact with the planet, is harming it, and there's great satisfaction to be had in the various layers of the story being revealed, even as it becomes apparent that Solaris is ultimately unknowable. A show I absolutely loved, and one that you could hear the audience enthusiastically theorising about on the way out.

PS: Don't bother with the "Solaris" to the tune of "Volare" joke, Greig is way ahead of you.

Solaris by David Greig, based on the novel by Stanisław Lem, is booking until the 2nd of November at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic.