Eugene weekly., March 03, 2016, Page 33, Image 33

T H E AT E R
BY WILLIAM KENNEDY
INGA R. WILSON (LEFT) AND ERICA TOWE IN OCT’S SILENT SKY
SLICE OF HEAVEN
OCT’S Silent Sky tells the story of
hearts and stars
L
auren Gunderson’s 2011 play Silent Sky is about
succeeding and failing, seeking and discovering,
journeying and arriving. That is to say, it’s the
story of a life — the life of astronomer Henrietta
Leavitt. Silent Sky, directed by Elizabeth Helman,
is playing now at Oregon Contemporary Theatre.
Working at Harvard at the turn of the 20th century,
Leavitt made significant discoveries leading to the
development of the Hubble Telescope.
At the time there weren’t many women working in the
sciences, and Silent Sky pitches Leavitt as an unheralded
feminist pioneer. The women working at Harvard are referred
to as a “harem.” Only men are allowed to use the telescope.
This is an important tale to tell, but it’s far from the
play’s most interesting storyline. Instead, Silent Sky’s most
vital moments come when playwright Lauren Gunderson
contemplates life’s big mysteries, such as: How can two
sisters gaze at the heavens, as Leavitt and her sister
Margaret do early in the play, one seeing answers while the
other sees only questions?
Also, how can we know so much about our universe
and still not understand what puts two human souls in orbit
with one another? Leavitt and her Harvard colleague Peter
Shaw experience this phenomenon as romance blossoms
between them.
OCT’s production, designed beautifully by Steen V.
Mitchell, places the external next to the internal, mixing
projected stars alongside handwritten text.
Leavitt, portrayed by Inga R. Wilson, embodies the
young century’s seemingly endless opportunities,
combining intrepid intelligence with Mae West’s sauciness.
The romance between Leavitt and Shaw (played with
charming affability by Cloud Pemble) has a Jimmy Stewart-
Katharine Hepburn chemistry. Shaw makes rounds,
checking on the women in the lab. “I come around,” he says,
awkwardly explaining his role. It works, and you root for
the young couple, even when things turn rocky.
Silent Sky’s supporting cast is strong top to bottom.
Leavitt’s sister Margaret (played with Midwestern sincerity
by Erica Towe) balances Henrietta’s intellectual curiosity
with a steadfast faith that not everything in life can, or
needs to be, explained by science.
Leavitt’s labmates at Harvard, Annie and Williamina,
frequently steal the show. Williamina (Sharon Sless) is a
sharp-tongued, wizened old Scot, and Annie (Jen Ferro) is a
battleship plowing the waters of 19th-century gender politics.
This pair of women gets the play’s funniest moments,
and the laughs are well earned. The camaraderie that
develops among Leavitt, Annie and Williamina as they
work alongside one another in the lab is pitch-perfect and
a highlight of the show.
In a somewhat rushed last act — similar to the way history
accelerated with women’s suffrage, war and the floodgates of
science thrown open ever wider — we see our cast at its most
personal. As is often the case, each character learns that,
sometimes, you have to travel outward in order to turn inward.
At several points Leavitt ponders: Exactly where are
we? The answer comes, as it often does when we face
mortality: Exactly where we’ve always been, and
sometimes that’s good enough. ■
Silent Sky runs through March 19 at Oregon Contemporary Theatre;
tickets and info at octeatre.org or 465-1506.
GHOSTS OF THE DEAD
University Theatre’s Scorched examines the plight of war refugees
W
ritten in 2003, Scorched is by Lebanese-
Canadian writer Wajdi Mouawad. Opening
Thursday, March 3, University of Oregon
theater arts instructor Michael Najjar directs
the play at University Theatre.
“Scorched is about a pair of twins who attend the
reading of their mother’s will,” Najjar explains. “They are
charged by their mother to find their father and brother
they never knew they had.”
If the siblings don’t follow this request, they are not
allowed to bury their mother properly.
“The onus is on them to either meet this challenge or
not,” Najjar continues. In doing so, the twins go on a
journey back in time through a series of flashbacks as well
as an actual journey to their mother’s home country, where
they learn more about what their mother suffered during a
civil war.
Najjar says the themes of war and refugees resonated
with his family history. “My own family fled Lebanon,”
Najjar says. “My wife’s family fled in the civil war as
well.”
Along with this personal connection to story, Najjar
says he hopes the play helps to humanize the tragic
headlines we see seemingly on a daily basis.
“On the news you’ll hear 24 people died today, 50
people died today, 100 people died today, and these
number float around,” he says. “A play like this humanizes
the story. You’re forced to empathize with people who
have been in wars.”
“I think that is the power of the theater,” Najjar says.
“People are channeling those experiences directly in front of
the audience. This kind of a play can bring a kind of
awareness to the situation. I hope the play will resonate on
a much, much deeper level, especially given all the stories
we hear every day about the refugee crisis.”
“The point is for us to really take a moment and explore
these people’s lives and try to speak for them,” Najjar says.
“The ghosts of the dead are speaking.”
Najjar warns that, although the play is very serious, it
contains elements of humor as well as a love story. “Any
good piece of art has to focus on the light and the dark,”
Najjar says.
And he adds that one of Scorched’s most important
messages comes from the mother, speaking to her children
from beyond the grave.
“Their lives began in two different ways,” Najjar says
of the play’s sibling leads. “One was in horror and one was
in love. She tells them it’s really up to them. It’s up to them
to choose which of those stories they want to believe in.”
Here Najjar quotes from the script, recalling that the
mother asks, “‘Where does your story begin? At your
birth? Then it begins in horror. At your father’s birth? Then
it is a beautiful love story. When they ask you to tell your
story, tell them your story goes back to the day when a
young girl went back to her native village to engrave her
grandmother’s name on a gravestone.’”
“It really asks us, as audience members, what do we
think of as our origin stories?” Najjar says. “If we have a
choice, can we look at a different starting point? The play
asks the audience to take a deep personal journey.” ■
JESSICA LEE (LEFT) AND JERILYN ARMSTRONG
IN UT’S SCORCHED
Scorched runs March 3-13 at UO’s Hope Theatre; for mature audiences
only. Tickets and info at blogs.uoregon.edu/theatre.
eugeneweekly.com • March 3, 2016
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