Silent Sky is another welcome play in the canon of both foregrounding influential women of science and dispelling the pervasive view that STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is the domain of men. Plays about scientists are uncommon, and about female scientists even more so.
American playwright Lauren Gunderson’s protagonist is Henrietta Leavitt, an astronomer who made profoundly important contributions to the field in the early 1900s when she was employed at Havard University to analyse photographs of star fields. Her work led to a greatly improved understanding of the size of the universe. In Gunderson’s play, Leavitt is singular in mind – her work is everything and her devotion to it adversely impacts her family life, her bond with her sister Margaret, and her own chances of having a meaningful relationship. Indeed, through her almost slavish dedication to her work she inadvertently distances herself from Peter Shaw who is her immediate supervisor. He clearly has a romantic interest in Henrietta but he receives no real encouragement, until it is too late. As Henrietta progresses her investigations, she is chastised by senior team member Annie Jump Cannon who thinks Henrietta is attempting to work beyond her station, at least initially, but is encouraged by co-worker Williamina Fleming who has an alternative view about the efficacy of women as a result of her having to do it tough in her own relationship. Good cop, bad cop – dramaturgically, it works well. Eventually Henrietta’s health becomes an issue, and she is ultimately denied the opportunity to fully enjoy the recognition her scientific success warrants.
Gunderson’s text successfully walks a fine line between pointed conversation and insistent tropes, and it demands the cast of five to be lively, transactional and upbeat at times, and vulnerable and emotional at others. Tianna Cooper as Margaret, and especially Deborah Walsh as Cannon, are particularly successful in negotiating these shifts. Walsh is delightful as a suffragette in the closing scenes of the play – it comes as a complete surprise! Brittany Daw in the lead role of Henrietta never leaves the stage, and never falters. Her almost steely portrayal of Henrietta’s single-minded determination is constant and, arguably, we might have enjoyed seeing more vulnerability from Henrietta as she negotiated Shaw’s romantic interest in her. Josh van’t Padje as Shaw draws numerous chuckles from the audience as his increasingly clumsy and awkward romantic advances are brushed aside, or worse, are completely missed by Henrietta! Joanne St Clair as Fleming has the unenviable and difficult task of creating a Scottish accent. Her ebullient mannerisms and cheeky demeanour are a perfect foil for Henrietta’s even temperament and Cannon’s ‘properness’, even if her adopted brogue ‘got in the way’ at times!
The set, designed by Don Oakley, is functional and works well as the action shifts backwards and forwards between diverse locations. We always know where we are. Colourful and changing overhead projections of images from deep space add to the sense that Henrietta’s mind is almost always ‘in the heavens’. Dean Taylor’s very large, classy prop telescope dominates the central upstage area and almost takes on idolatry significance. The production uses pleasing music that was written for the original production.
Director Lesly Reed and the cast and crew have successfully brought an interesting period of science history to life. Unlike the tired trope that science and scientists are unexciting, this production has much to pique one’s interest and enjoyment.
Photo: Les Zetlein
