As any theater goer knows, “Ueber die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Grösse (usual English translation: “On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude”) is a seminal 9-page paper by Bernhard Riemann published in the November 1859 edition of the Monatsberichte der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.”

While I didn’t go to Life on Paper to learn more about the famous (to some) Riemann hypothesis that all nontrivial zeros of the analytical continuation of the Riemann zeta function have a real part of 1/2, I wasn’t scared off by it and a part of me was curious to see how a discussion of it might be worked seamlessly into the dialogue.

And, while I enjoyed listening to a brief exchange about prime numbers and infinity, those of you whose eyes glaze over at the mere mention of a mathematics problem will be relieved to know that the play is not about a series of intricate equations on a blackboard any more than the play Proof is, but rather is a discussion about life choices and a character study of two people thrown together by fate.

Fate, alas, was not on the side of an understudy who had the misfortunate of setting into motion, during a scene change, a series of events that caused a lamp to break on stage. But, given the infinite number of possible outcomes that might have ensued, I’m happy to say that she and everyone else recovered beautifully from the mishap.

I actually found enjoyable, and not distracting, this one-act play’s numerous scene changes in the dark, as they were accompanied by excellent musical selections piped in through the theater’s sound system, though I wish I had paid closer attention as to how the lyrics may have complemented the script or illuminated the storyline.