Theater Review: THE HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE @ Pygmalion Theater Company | Buzz Blog

Monday, November 6, 2023

Theater Review: THE HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE @ Pygmalion Theater Company

A fact-based story turns into a funny, thoughtful exploration of change

Posted By on November 6, 2023, 11:41 AM

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click to enlarge April Fossen and Stephanie Howell in The Half-Life of Marie Curie
  • April Fossen and Stephanie Howell in The Half-Life of Marie Curie
As Pygmalion Theatre Company’s production of The Half-Life of Marie Curie opens, a monologue by the celebrated chemist herself (Stephanie Howell) makes it clear that the “half-life” referenced in the title isn’t in any sense a diminishment. Instead, it’s an application of the chemical principle of radioactive decay to the nature of change—a thing (or perhaps a person) changing bit by bit until it has made a ship-of-Theseus-like evolution into something altogether new.

That underlying idea permeates Lauren Gunderson’s play, which focuses on the period circa 1912 when the widowed Marie had become the target of vicious attacks in the Parisian press resulting from the exposure of her affair with a married man. She finds a sympathetic ear in her friend Hertha Ayrton (April Fossen), the British electrical engineer who offers Marie and her daughters a refuge for the summer at her seaside home in England.

The chemistry between the actors is crucial to a two-hander piece like this, and director Fran Pruyn makes the most of a wonderful pairing. Fossen has the showier of the two roles, as Hertha enthusiastically pontificates about her atheism and her support for the suffragette cause, but the actor also identifies the place of anger and frustration that fuels her. Howell, meanwhile, has to convey both the physical weakness of a woman dealing with radiation poisoning, and the inner strength she finds ultimately to emerge back into public life without shame, and she does so wonderfully.

click to enlarge April Fossen and Stephanie Howell in The Half-Life of Marie Curie
  • April Fossen and Stephanie Howell in The Half-Life of Marie Curie
That particular transition is perhaps the most obvious manifestation of Gunderson’s “half-life” themes, but it’s not the only one. Much of the conversation between the two women deals with their place in a man’s world—not just the general man’s world of their time and place, but the even-more-defined man’s world of the scientific academy—and their incremental efforts to break down barriers. Some of the playwright’s dialogue gets a bit on-the-nose in addressing obstacles like sexual double-standards, but Gunderson is also wise enough to center the connection between these two characters as among the only women engaged in their respective fields, refusing to be treated as less-than. “It takes heart to question the nature of things,” Hertha says at one point, and The Half-Life of Marie Curie finds its most effective moments in how Marie and Hertha take on that challenge: as women, as mothers, as scientists, as activists.

It would be a disservice to this play and to this production to suggest it’s simply a lecture about Important Issues, because it’s also tremendously entertaining. There are as many laugh-out-loud lines and moments in The Half-Life of Marie Curie as there are in many plays more clearly defined as comedies, with Fossen and Howell bringing great energy to the humor in the piece. And that too serves as way to think about the show’s themes of refusing to see things as fixed and strictly-defined. In the same way that, as Marie reminds us in the play, light is both a particle and a wave, The Half-Life of Marie Curie is both a comedy and a drama, as well as a reminder that the one sure way to make sure you don’t get to the essential truth of something is to decide you already know what it is.

The Half-Life of Marie Curie continues through Nov. 18 at the Rose Wagner Center Black Box Theater. Visit arttix.org for tickets and showtimes.

About The Author

Scott Renshaw

Scott Renshaw

Bio:
Scott Renshaw has been a City Weekly staff member since 1999, including assuming the role of primary film critic in 2001 and Arts & Entertainment Editor in 2003. Scott has covered the Sundance Film Festival for 25 years, and provided coverage of local arts including theater, pop-culture conventions, comedy, literature,... more

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