By Beulah F. Vega
The year is 1911, and the scandal rocking Paris is the “Curie affair.” It has come to light that famed physicist Marie Curie (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong) has been sleeping with a married man for years! This revelation has taken her from being beloved to being reviled in the press. Enter electrical engineering trailblazer Hertha Ayrton (Julie Eccles-Benson), whose indomitable spirit is enough to shake Marie out of her despondency long enough to make a trip to England.
What happens in England is the subject of Lauren Gunderson’s The Half-Life of Marie Curie, now playing at The 222 in Healdsburg through March 30.
Both actresses are excellent. Benson is a powerhouse. From the moment she opens her mouth, there is no doubt she could be leading an unruly suffragette march. Her strength and forcefulness can sometimes be overwhelming, but she makes smart choices and is mindful of finding the levels within her character.
Mbele–Mbong has a tougher character to deal with. Curie is written amid a fit of melancholy for most of the play, requiring Mbele-Mbong to try and keep an audience interested in a character that has given up. This is a huge acting challenge which Mbele-Mbong pulls off. However, her articulation could have been cleaner at times to counter the thick French accent.
The two women complement each other well. Their mutual talent and onstage chemistry create a believable, dynamic friendship.
It helps that they are costumed beautifully. Costumer Naomi Arnst’s simplistic yet elegant designs lend themselves to the quirkiness of Gunderson’s storytelling style.
The staging, however, is a little rougher. At one point, Director Amy Kossow has the two women seated with their backs to the audience, impossibly leaning on a bench to mime an open window. Similarly, there were whole scenes where audience members seated at tables on the margins of the wide stage could only see one woman’s face or the other.
As a director, I understand the desire for dynamic sightlines and interesting stage pictures, but not at the expense of the storytelling. On the subject of storytelling, like all Gunderson plays the script holds your hand and never asks much of its audience.
That being said, The 222 still deserves kudos. The 222 didn’t have to use an all-female production crew to tell this story as part of Women’s History Month, but it did.
It is heartening when a theater’s commitment to its values stretches beyond just the cast and playwright, and that alone is cause for celebration.
‘The Half-Life of Marie Curie’ runs through March 30 at The 222, 222 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. Fri-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 2pm. $45-$105. Students free with ID. the222.org
