Émilie is a radiant portrait of a celebrated French mathematician and philosopher who also challenged the norms of her social environment by being a woman.
The truth may not be that clear-cut. Gabrielle Émilie e Tonnelier de Breteuil was championed at first by her father, then by her husband Marquis du Chastellet-Lomont of whom she wed at age 17 in an arranged marriage. She then became Emilie du Chatelet.
Finally, she met Francois-Marie Arouet who was widely known by his writer’s handle of Voltaire.
Voltaire was a philosopher and a celebrated writer. His debut play OEdipe brought him accolades and financial success. But he was a trenchant critic of the State and the hegemony of the Church. He championed the ideas of religious tolerance and freedom of thought. This brought him into repeated conflict with the authorities and he had been imprisoned more than once for his ideas and writing.
The progress of human consciousness seems to be trapped in perpetual self-defeat, so it would seem in today’s world of toxic social media and the pervasiveness of cancel culture.
Voltaire was avoiding arrest by exiling himself to the French countryside, at Émilie’s husband’s chateau in Cirey, in 1733.
This is where the play begins. The show has been written and directed by Sophie Lindsay, and it has a light delicate charm with a healthy dose of comedy.
Lindsay has also composed the music. Prior to the play beginning, we are serenaded by some quite charming chamber music. Violinist Peau Halapua plays delightful melodic passages whilst cellist Sarah Spence lays out more lugubrious tones.
They also provide the continuous backing soundtrack for the entire play, highlighting the comedy as well as the pathos. Lindsay provides the pre-recorded piano parts.
We meet Voltaire first, played by Justin Rogers. He plays him with the bold and witty charms of Young Turks like Byron and Shelley, swanning around Lake Geneva.
When he finally meets Émilie, played by Beth Alexander, he is smitten and gets to walk around like a lovelorn fool. It helps that Alexander plays the role with the allure of a Scarlett Johannson.
The set is minimal, and the main prop is an antique writing desk. The small pile of shifting books on it is a reference to the 21,000 books the pair amassed there.
The famous couple bonded around their passion for mathematics, physics, philosophy and the works of Sir Isaac Newton.
Emilie worked on translating Newton’s Principia from Latin to French. Along the way she expanded some concepts and introduced new ones.
There is ample evidence that Emilie did in fact gain recognition in her time, as a mathematician and a theoretical physicist. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, recognised this and championed her work, and introduced her to other great scholars of her time.
The real opprobrium came from society’s chattering classes, and this is delightfully skewered in the play by the two ladies-in waiting, Marie (Bronwyn Ensor) and Isabelle (Clementine Mills). They are servants to Voltaire and Emilie respectively, but they also double as fussy, scandal-mongering harpies, using the signalling devices of their big fans.
Ensor tends to steal the scenes she is in with the two principals, with broad comedic touches.
The passionate part of the relationship runs its course, and both pursue other partners and sensual pleasures. But their intellectual bond remained.
Émilie succumbed to a common danger in the 1700’s, the complications of childbirth. She was 42, and her work on Newton has published posthumously.
Voltaire published Elements of the Philosophy of Isaac Newton ten years before this.
Émilie is a delightful work, and it flows with a light humorous touch, framed by a perfect soundtrack performed live. But there are sharp barbs and some prescient commentary in the narrative by Sophie Lindsay.
The last word to Voltaire. Those who can be made to believe absurdities, can be made to commit atrocities.
Rev Orange Peel
Émilie runs at Q Theatre Through 23 September. Tickets and more information HERE.
