Pretty Fly for a Sci-fi

5 stars

Based on the 1961 book of the same name by Polish author Stanisław Lem, Solaris recounts the events that occur on a research station hovering in orbit above the titular ocean planet. Orbiting between two stars, Solaris defies scientific explanation, behaving not as a planet but more like a living being. The book is about the futility of humans trying to communicate with or understand alien beings.

The main drama of the novel comes in the form of the ‘visitors’, haunting doppelgängers drawn from the minds of the researchers that seem to originate from Solaris itself. In the case of the main character, Kris Kelvin, a former lover appears, torturing him with guilt over her suicide. This terrifies him, even as he begins a relationship with the clone that acts and behaves like the woman he has lost.

The play, adapted by David Greig, is a very different beast. Stripping out a lot of the book’s ambiguity, the play reaches to the heart of what Lem was aiming for while also updating it for a modern audience. What was previously all very high-concept becomes more accessible, without compromising on the original vision.

In the novel the characters are hidden away, deep in the psychological hell caused by their visitor. The play brings the crew (all, bar Snow, gender flipped) out of their rooms to argue about the proper way to respond to the nonsensical constructs that Solaris has sent them. While this may be a theatrical necessity to avoid long expositional monologues, it does give the characters a chance to voice the hopes and fears that the planet, and the thought of wider alien contact, inspire in them.

By making Kris’ (Polly Frame) visitor the most advanced, Dr Sartorius (Jade Ogugua) and Dr Snow (Fode Simbo) become the voices of humanity, shut out of the cabin where Kris sequesters herself with Ray (Keegan Joyce). The two colleagues are free to worry about what it would actually mean to make contact with a truly alien intelligence. Through this dialogue, the story, once regarded as Freudian and anticommunist, challenges the arrogance that inspired efforts to communicate with the planet. While possibly the clunkiest of the scenes, its earnest message reaches far beyond the words that carry it.

The setting of the narrative lends itself to interesting set design with a clean white spaceship interior, parts of which slide away to reveal beds, cabin doors, and cassette players. Charmingly analogue, the play has its astronauts research in the library and smoke cigars. While it could easily be dismissed as quaint, and is intentionally anachronistic, the effect is to create a chimera that has been left behind in time. The station and the scientists on it have dedicated years to studying a being that has no interest in them and may in fact only be dreaming.

It is in the third quarter that the play falters. The planet, no longer the amoral Lovecraftian horror of the novel, is unnecessarily anthropomorphised. Solaris, in Greig’s version, is childlike, learning to talk to its visitors step by step before manifesting in increasingly sophisticated ways. One scene, in which Kris’ visitor is on stage alone, seems to commit this version of ‘Solaris’ to one very specific interpretation of the story. Though a twist towards the end challenges this interpretation, the damage is already done.

In the end, the tender moments between Kris and Ray stop the play from becoming overly cerebral, by grounding it in Kris’ pain and hope, and in Ray’s horror at discovering his true nature. By developing a simpler romp out of a hugely complicated text, Greig and his director Matthew Lutton have created something worth seeing.