Ruth Leon Pocket Theatre Review- The Lightest Element
Ruth Leon recommendsThe Lightest Element
Imagine you’re a Cambridge Doctoral candidate of surpassing brilliance. It’s 1925. You’ve made a scientific discovery that will turn the world of astronomy on its ear and you’ve written it up as the centrepiece of your Dissertation. And then your academic supervisor refuses to accept it because, as a potential employer once said to me, pityingly, “But, my dear, you’re a girl.”
That’s what happens in the first scene of Stella Feehily’s riveting play to Cecilia Payne, the first woman to…….well, the first woman to do many things, including becoming Chairman of the Astronomy Department at Harvard.
How she got there, and why, is the meat of this fascinating story. She comes to vibrant life in a splendid and understated performance from Maureen Beattie which traverses the scientific landscape from the 20s to the 50s, via the many obstacles she encountered along the way, including a widely held, but untrue accusation that, because her husband, Sergei Gaposchkin, was Russian, she might be a Communist. Blocked by the academic hierarchy at every step, she somehow navigated her way to the top of America’s most prestigious scholarly institution and, with admirable restraint and generosity, accepted that she was both a product and a victim of her time.
There’s a lot going on in The Lightest Element. A student is sent to interview her for the Harvard Crimson, (a promising debut from Annie Kingsnorth) with an agenda to prove she has unsavoury political leanings, but despite all the odds against her, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was the first woman to attain full professorship at Harvard and the first female chair of any department at Harvard, although for some years the courses she taught were not included in the official catalogue.
Many of the other characters in The Lightest Element are recognisably famous real Harvard professors of science but the most felicitous fictional addition is that of Cecilia’s best friend, supporter and foil, played by the excellent Rina Mahoney whose character is emblematic of the strength that great women draw from one another when support from their fellows is thin on the ground.
Comments