Acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead) returns to the National Theatre with his highly-anticipated new play The Hard Problem, directed by Nicholas Hytner (Othello, Hamlet, One Man, Two Guvnors).

Hilary, a young psychology researcher at a brainscience institute, is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question at work, where psychology and biology meet. If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? This is ‘the hard problem’ which puts Hilary at odds with her colleagues who include her first mentor Spike, her boss Leo and the billionaire founder of the institute, Jerry. Is the day coming when the computer and the fMRI scanner will answer all the questions psychology can ask? Meanwhile Hilary needs a miracle, and she is prepared to pray for one.

The Coolidge is the exclusive Boston-area venue for this series of plays — captured live in high-definition — from London’s prestigious National Theatre. 

National Theatre Live (NT Live) is a groundbreaking initiative to broadcast the best of British theater to cinemas around the world. The first season of events, which began in June 2009 with the acclaimed production of Phèdre starring Helen Mirren, was seen by over 165,000 people on 320 screens in 22 countries. 

“A smashing success.” – LA Times