Stella Feehily’s new play is a celebration of the dedication and determination of Cecilia Pane-Gaposchkin, the eminent, British-born astrophysicist who became Chair of Astronomy and the first woman to head a department at Harvard.
It is framed by her preparation for and delivery of the Henry Norris Russell Prize lecture to the American Astronomical Society in 1977 on receiving that award for her lifetime achievement, but it jumps back to 1925 when Cecilia, who had gone to America because before 1948, Cambridge, England did not grant degrees to women, is discussing her PhD with the same Professor. She has proposed that, contrary to what was then believed, the stars are predominately composed of helium and hydrogen (the lightest element of the play’s title). He refuses to accept this challenge to his own work and insists on revision, though four years later, he became of the same opinion, however he got there in a different way.
The main action of the play takes place a quarter century later when Cecilia, now a respected academic and recently made the first woman professor at Harvard, is a candidate for the Chair of Astronomy and finds herself still facing the misogyny of an entrenched establishment, as well as being targeted by the student editor of the Harvard newspaper who seeks to discredit her as a communist sympathiser—this at a time of reds-under-the-bed paranoia and the McCarthy witch-hunts. Would be journalist student Sally Kane is sent to interview her briefed with a list of loaded questions.
The way in which Professor Payne-Gaposchkin handles the journalist and faces establishment attitudes is the core of the play, but doesn’t make great drama. Its interest lies mainly in learning about a remarkable woman you may never have heard of, and Maureen Beattie’s fine performance, presenting her from the young academic who admits people often call her “a pushy English girl” and think her eccentric, to her delivery of part of that 1977 lecture. We get to admire her achievement but learn almost nothing about her private life, though Maureen Beattie suggests a complex personality.
Annie Kingsworth gives a glimpse into student journalist Sally’s dilemma as she tries to balance fair-mindedness and respect against her editor boyfriend’s instructions, and Rina Mahoney gives good support as Cecilia’s stalwart assistant, but the most dramatic moment in director Alice Hamilton’s production is a combination of design, video and Johanna Town’s lighting when we join the female characters in observing a solar eclipse.