Bille Brown Theatre
October 13, 2018

Queensland Theatre has christened its new home theatre and Brisbane’s first corner stage with David Williamson’s Nearer the Gods, a world premiere about the politics of science and how one of the most significant advances of the Age of Enlightenment almost never happened.

Lucas Stibbard, Daniel Murphy, Rhys Muldoon and Matthew Backer. Photo © Jeff Busby

Newton’s laws of motion are described in the play as ‘the greatest leap in knowledge in the natural world we have ever been gifted’, and Nearer the Gods introduces audiences to Isaac Newton on the brink of this, his greatest discovery. The work focuses on the mammoth amount of effort and risk undertaken by young astronomer Edmund Halley (played by Matthew Backer) to wrestle these secrets of the universe from Newton (Rhys Muldoon), who at that time had become a sullen and demanding recluse driven by religious delusions. While Newton maintained that God had chosen him to decipher the Book of Revelations and reveal His true plan for the world, Halley staked his family, finances, and tenuous position at the Royal Society on Newton’s theories about the laws of motion and universal...