Darwin is a subject of endless fascination for playwrights. This one has a little different take - it is a play within a play, and it concerns Darwin's relationship with Captain FitzRoy. FitzRoy is treated with compassion and sympathy here, which is nice, but at the same time, Darwin is reduced to a stereotype of someone who doesn't really care about people, which is a difficult view to arrive at through reading the vast literature on Darwin. The author does not appear to be making an anti-evolutionary or anti-Darwin statement, so it appears this is merely something she has derived from her own review of the Darwin literature, though it's difficult to see how. The modern story she tacked on, about actors performing the Darwin play, is less compelling, and is a clumsy attempt to make some sort of analogy on natural selection, but without grasping the fine points of what the theory of natural selection actually says. In fact, the opportunity to correct a huge popular misunderstanding is present, but is missed badly in this portion of the play. ( )