REVIEW: Moline’s Black Box Offers Electrifying, Glowing Portrait of Strong Women
Befitting its real-life subjects, The Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline is presenting an electrifying, glowing tribute to two powerful, strong, and pioneering women with the area premiere of the Lauren Gunderson two-hander “The Half-Life of Marie Curie” — starring Jessica White as Marie Curie and Pam Mautz Cantrell as Hertha Ayrton. This is their first show on The Black Box stage and they create indelible portraits of these amazing females.
The play is directed and designed by Lora Adams (BBT co-founder and artistic director) with light design by Alexander Richardson and sound design by Doug Kutzli.
Adams – who has unerring taste and dramatic style – is clearly a fan of playwright Gunderson, since her intimate, vital venue has already staged “Silent Sky,” “Natural Shocks,” “I and You” and “The Revolutionists” — all of which boast forceful, independent female characters.
Pam Cantrell, left, as Hertha and Jessica White as Marie make their Black Box Theatre debut in the current play directed by Lora Adams.
The current production centers on Marie Curie (1867-1934) and Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923), two pioneering women in scientific fields over a century ago. Most of the action unfolds in 1912, at a time when Marie was the object of ruthless gossip over an alleged affair with the married Paul Langevin. Curie’s husband Pierre was killed in a 1906 horse carriage accident. Weakened and demoralized by the press (even after winning her second Nobel Prize), Marie agrees to join Hertha at her seaside retreat in England, to recover from the scandal and revel in their deep friendship.
The intelligent, stirring play is an inspiring testament to the power of female friendship (as well as knowledge, science, resilience and feminism), and the unbreakable bonds that can withstand the most challenging of times.
Curie (who saved thousands of lives in World War I, noted at the end of this play) was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.
In 1911, Marie Curie won the Nobel in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium.
“The Half-Life of Marie Curie” by Lauren Gunderson concerns the close friendship between early 20th-century scientists Hertha Ayrton and Marie Curie.
At the outset of Gunderson’s compelling meditation, we see Cantrell deliver a monologue (the one-act, 90-minute play has many) that shows her to be stern, sarcastic and iron-willed. As an electro-mechanical engineer, Ayrton explains her branch of scientific expertise. Curie was a native of Poland, but the only reference to her home country is when she remarks that the sea air’s aroma reminds her of it. She coined the phrase “radioactive,” and a “half-life” denotes the amount of time it takes for half an element (mainly a radioactive isotope) to decay.
The play, which denotes actual events, is a persuasive declaration of Ayrton’s affection and admiration for Curie and the blazing smarts displayed by both. Hertha is a bulldozing, blunt advocate (Cantrell is perfect in the part) for Marie and defends her in the face of this sexist gossip, which they say would never be leveled at male scientists. Curie bemoans her circumstances, relating how she was unfairly labeled “a home-wrecker” and a disgrace to her country. Hertha says she is punished for simply living life.
As thrillingly portrayed by a steady, passionate, magnetic Jessica White, Curie seems more modest, refined and upstanding than Ayrton, who relishes this battle. They lament how men can do anything they want without facing consequences (that sounds eerily familiar today). Ayrton is used to fighting, as a suffragette campaigning for women’s right to vote in England. She gives the despairing Curie several pep talks.
The Nobel Committee apparently asked Curie not to attend the 1912 ceremony, but she did anyway. We hear a note that Curie received from Albert Einstein, in which he wrote that he admired her intellect, drive and her honesty. The November 1911 letter also said: “I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. However, I am convinced that you consistently despise this rabble, whether it obsequiously lavishes respect on you or whether it attempts to satiate its lust for sensationalism!”
Pam Cantrell, left, as Hertha and Jessica White as Marie make their Black Box Theatre debut in the current play directed by Lora Adams.
Ayrton calls her peaceful seaside retreat “heaven” and “magical” and the initial scene of the two of them relaxing there is wonderful, with neat lighting effects by Alexander Richardson, with gently pulsating, flowing colored lights. Marie agrees that it is a gift, and Hertha responds that it’s a gift to host her. She feels lost and abandoned, and doesn’t know who she is anymore. After Hertha opens and reads a letter from Paul and Marie collapses to the floor, she yells out her frustration, and at right delivers a monologue as if she’s floating in the water. As we hear the sound of waves, it is hypnotic, creating a dreamlike state, where Marie is finally at peace.
Hertha finds her vial of radium (which Marie carries everywhere) and they have a volcanic fight about it. Their reconciliation, filled with laughter and whiskey, is a delight to witness.
A postscript – delivered by both actresses on each side of the long stage in spotlight – covers World War I and after, noting Marie’s landmark creation of mobile X-rays, which helped save lives during the war. A late scene adds more drama as Marie frenetically rushes to Hertha’s side when she heard she was dying in 1923.
I had known very little about Marie Curie and nothing about Aryton before seeing this remarkable play about remarkable women, and as the BBT program notes – it’s a wonderful thing to not only be entertained, but to learned something as well.
AMEN, and kudos to all involved! Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday (Sept. 25-27) and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 28, at 1623 5th Ave., Moline. Tickets are $18 are available at the door or at theblackboxtheatre.com.
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