Dec 20 2009
This September, Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze was a smash hit at the Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA, just a five-minute walk up the street from M.I.T. In interviewing writer/performer Gioia De Cari, Fringe Propaganda, the official newspaper of the New York International Fringe Festival, described the upcoming Cambridge run as “returning to the scene of the crime.”
The M.I.T. community came out in droves to see the show, which Thomas Garvey of The Hub Review described as being “the first time I have ever seen M.I.T. life … depicted accurately on a stage in Boston … Truth Values is basically what Good Will Hunting pretended to be.”
But how did the M.I.T. math department react? Read below …
“I bought a ticket for one of the first performances … I just wanted to get it over with after so much talking about it in our department. I was expecting 90 minutes of complaints and instead I enjoyed a fantastic monologue with moments of pure humor, sadness, intelligence and struggle. Gioia has the brain of a mathematician and the heart of an artist and she combined them in a wonderful performance.” — Gigliola Staffilani (M.I.T. math professor)
“The play is entirely wonderful: very funny, and very moving, and perspective-changing. It was a particular pleasure to see a friend doing so extremely well at work that is so worthwhile. But I would have loved the play even if I’d never heard of the author. — David Vogan (M.I.T. math professor)
“This is an incredible success story, after all: Gioia’s master thesis (wrapped into great theatre) received more public exposure than any Ph.D. thesis ever will — let alone the attention of a departmental meeting 20 years after graduation.” — Katrin Wehrheim (M.I.T. math professor)
“Gioia’s story is engaging, entertaining, and personal — one woman’s path to find herself and her passions while pursuing a doctorate in M.I.T.’s math department. The depiction of the wacky mathematicians is both frank and sometimes timeless, helping us to laugh at ourselves and our little community, glad that we can now wear pink sweaters and short skirts without anyone taking offense.” — Jennifer French (M.I.T. math graduate student)
“The play explores the joy of being a mathematician, the pains of graduate school, and the path of dicovering that research isn’t the same as taking classes. Some of the topics she talks about are specific for women, some are specific for mathematicians, but I think everyone who ever had a hard time in their career and thought about changing it will find something of their own reflected in her play.” — Martina Balagovic (M.I.T. math graduate student)