Review: SECRET THOUGHTS, Omnibus Theatre

Omnibus Theatre’s AI Festival continues with an adaptation of David Lodge’s Secret Thoughts by Paloma Jacob-Duvernet. First seen at Southwark Playhouse in 2021, the piece is a direct explanation of what consciousness is in an age where Artificial Intelligence is starting to mirror the human experience.

Ralph, a cognitive scientist and philanderer interested in AI, meets Helen, a recently widowed novelist and lapsed Catholic when she takes up a tutoring position at his university.

They discuss the role of humanity in an increasingly digital world. In principle, their discussion makes for a thought-provoking play, both philosophically and intellectually. In practice, Jacob-Duvernet keeps the action to a minimum while Lodge’s text falls into a didactic pace, often chasing its own tail. 

There are plenty of riveting reflections, from the science versus belief argumentation, to how the awareness of mortality plagues our race, pushing us to research a more significant meaning to make sense of it. Ralph is spurred by his professional curiosity, Helen by her bereaved headspace. While their active debates are short and far apart, they communicate their feelings to the audience with a gimmick. Helen writes in her journal, Ralph records his passing thoughts for the benefit of his study. It does the job.

Emma Wilkinson Wright and El Anthony are quite the assorted duo. She gives a passionate performance, affected by her character’s description of depression and motivated by her grief. On the other side of the battlefield, Anthony is a jumpy, fervent researcher who walks the edge of pedantic backhanded patronisation. One is still, resigned, disheartened; the other paces and gesticulates with intense enthusiasm.

The push and pull between her craving for spirituality and his pompous scientific answers to rationalise it is rendered visually during the scene changes. Jacob-Duvernet sets movement to overlong transitions where they guide one another across a chessboard. It’s all a bit pretentious, especially alongside the wordy, grandiose exchanges that feel unnatural even for two highly regarded professors.

As a whole, Secret Thoughts is the analysis of a handful of theories that have taunted humankind since we gained the consciousness to explore them. Philosophers have written endless essays and authors keep writing about it. The play is a summation of all of this, packaged in a slightly overly aggrandised and self-important - but inspiring nonetheless - production.

Secret Thoughts runs at Omnibus Theatre until 9 July.

Photo credit: Alicia Bridge

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