The 23rd instalment of Reading Theatre with Science takes place on 22 January (6:00 pm), at Semente Atelier (Major Seminary of Coimbra – Vandelli, 2).

The text to be read is “The Water Engine“, by David Mamet, translated as part of the Projeto de Tradução Colaborativa, a team for which we are always recruiting more people. As always, the original text, as well as the aforementioned translation, are available for consultation or loan at the Performing Arts and Science Documentation Centre. Anyone interested in taking part, either by reading or just watching, simply has to sign up via the following email address: ler@marioneteatro.com

This play was described in The Spectator as ‘an American fable about the common person and the institution’ and in The Guardian as ‘a propulsive, kaleidoscopic nightmare’.

In ‘The Water Engine’, actors, an announcer, and a sound effects man present a radio play during the 1930s with unerring authenticity. The “play within the play” reveals the story of a young inventor who’s found a way to run an engine on distilled water. At first ridiculed, he is courted by crooked lawyers attempting to buy the invention from him on behalf of “certain business interests.” After refusing, he is threatened, and when he attempts to give his story to the newspapers, he is murdered along with his sister. The engine is destroyed, but the inventor has mailed the blueprint to a young student scientist who will reveal the invention to the world…