Here’s part II of my theater extravaganza, my take on 2 more productions which opened in the last two weeks!

SILENT SKY now onstage and presented by Central Square Theater is another in a revelatory series of plays uncovering the little known and hardly dramatized stories of women pioneers in science. SILENT SKY is set in  Cambridge Mass, 1900, not far from where the action happened! Lauren Gunderson’s play opened my eyes to one Henrietta Leavitt (Jenny S. Lee) who was recruited to a team of female “Harvard Computers,” pioneering scientists in their own right: Lee Mikeska Gardner as Williamina Fleming and Erica Cruz Hernandez as Annie Cannon.  These women did the “housework”  which meant  they were allowed only to archive– but not to analyze star data. Trailer HERE

It was Leavitt with her passion for astronomy, meticulous observation, and overtime sweat who saw a pattern no one else had, breaking through with a formula for mapping the stars which became the foundation of our knowledge of the expanse of the universe. Jennifer S. Lee is terrifically charismatic in the role, conveying Henrietta’s verve, intelligence, and vulnerability as woman who has to make some tough choices against a male dominated scientific community. Kandyce Whittingham is her stalwart sister Margaret who maintains her affability despite her reservations about Henrietta’s professional choices.

As the lone man in the cast and holding his own in a thankless role is Max Jackson as Peter Shaw, who is ironically “in charge of” the Harvard Computers, but is clearly out of his orbit, especially once he scopes out Henrietta. In a deftly directed and lit scene, he circles her like the sun as the stars swirl around them, the audience on three sides, all of us caught up in Sarah Shin’s elegantly staged and directed production. THROUGH OCTOBER 5 !

Photo: Nile Hawver

OUR TOWN which just opened at Lyric Stage Boston remains a profound piece of work written by Thornton Wilder in 1938. When it opened in Boston almost 90 years ago it was considered too radical and flopped! The show almost didn’t make it to Broadway but then went on to win the Pulitzer becoming what Edward Albee called “the greatest American play ever written.”

Per Wilder, the play has minimal sets and props, intended to make these characters and their location more universal. As the Stage Director enters, he breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. Again, we find ourselves in that meta theatrical space–hyper aware– both inside and outside the action. We are witnessing the everyday life of a fictional small town in NH called Grover’s Corners where nothing out of the ordinary happens– until Act III. Then, one character, literally looking back from the grave declares, “My, wasn’t life awful and wonderful.” Done right, this epiphany can blow the top of your head off. The Huntington’s 2012 David Cromer production did exactly that to me.

Lyric Stage’s production directed by Courtney O’Connor, doesn’t quite get me there, but it is lovely and substantial, with mostly warm, unfussy performances by some of Boston’s best. A few quibbles– Will McGarrahan’s stage director left a tinge of irony in his wake which put me off. John Kuntz’s town drunk/choir master was over the top and pulled me out.  The lighting in the final flashback moments could have more tenderly evoked the painful longing for a life now past.

But the power of this play and this production lands squarely where it should. The production pulls us into the flow of  life in an ordinary town even as we feel every moment’s mythic undertow. As we tap into the eternal we get a stinging glimpse of how precious life itself is, how connected we all are over space and time through our human feelings, thoughts, dreams, and mortality. We need this play now. THROUGH OCTOBER 19!