Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 5
Playwright: Lauren Gunderson
Director: Liesel Badorrek
Cast
Rebecca Massey as Hertha Ayrton; Gabrielle Scawthorn as Marie Curie
Production Concept: Anthea Williams
Set & Costume Designer: James Browne
Lighting Designer: Verity Hampson
Composer & Sound Designer: Daniel Herten
Video Designer: Cameron Smith
Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley
Movement Coach: Gavin Robins
Stage Manager: Bella Kerdijk; Assistant Stage Manager: Maddison Craven
Costume Supervisor: Lily Mateljan
“The Half-Life of Marie Curie” is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint. (www.dramatists.com)
Director's Note
It is 1912 and Marie Curie has won two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields. It is almost impossible to overstate her level of international celebrity or, consequently the tempest that exploded after it was leaked to the press that she was having an affair with her married colleague Paul Langevin.
Virtually held hostage in her Paris home by journalists and angry mobs, Marie fell into a deep depression. Her friend, the British physicist, electromechanical engineer and suffragist, Hertha Aryton, took Marie to her house on the English coast for the summer, the respite of which may have saved Marie’s life. Obviously, we will never know the intricacies of this incredible friendship between two extraordinary women….but we can imagine.
The Victorian age was one of incredible change and discovery, particularly in the field of science. Unlike now, the worlds of science and spirituality weren’t regarded as mutually exclusive. There was a feeling that it was possible to reveal the invisible, and know the previously unknowable – in science, nature and even, to quote Hamlet, ‘That undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns’.
Like many Victorians, Marie attended seances with her husband Pierre out of curiosity. Could there be any science there? A measurable energy? What have we been and what do we become?
Lauren Gunderson’s play is about Transformation and Discovery – processes which shape both Marie and Hertha as women, as scientists and as friends, in real and transcendent ways.
‘Half-life. The moment an element transforms so fully that it is more other than self.’
Liesel Badorrek
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First, the performances, the stage design and choreography make this production of The Half-Life of Marie Curie one of the most imaginative, engaging and even exciting to watch shows that I have ever seen.
Second, but not least, the play, short though it is, has intellectual and emotional power which places it among the greatest theatrical works.
It was simply wonderful to see these two exquisite actors working so completely in harmony together, creating totally believable characters. Rebecca Massey as Hertha Ayrton grabs our attention from the get-go, so focussed on her concern for the welfare of her colleague, equal in scientific achievement, but suffering social contumely as a woman leading an independent life.
Gabrielle Scawthorn’s Marie Curie pulls us inevitably in to her emotional turmoil as a woman and lover of her dead husband, needing to find new love in Paul, in the context of her almost spiritual understanding of science, working with these men, which enabled her to explain the process by which seemingly unchanging elements radiate energy – changing half-life by half-life from uranium to lead.
Physics and chemistry are brought together in a fascinating abstract circle of light, darkness and transparency, representing in my mind the universe within which, and indeed integrated into, Marie and Hertha – like all of us – exist, live and die.
Thinking of the experience of such force emanating from the intimate space of the Ensemble Theatre brought to my mind, almost in a funny way, two words. Marie’s death, probably from cancer caused by the very radium she discovered, though long after the holiday that Hertha provided for her which “saved her life” socially, and gave her love, seemed AWFUL. Yet her two Nobel prizes are AWEFUL, and rightly show the importance of Marie Curie as a woman scientist.
I am not surprised to find on Wikipedia that Lauren Gunderson's works heavily focus on female figures in history, science, and literature. She is one of the top 20 most-produced playwrights in the country, and has been America's most produced living playwright since 2016. She has had over twenty plays produced including, “I and You”, “Émilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight”, “Parts They Call Deep”, and “Background”.
Thanks to Ensemble, my hope for American culture is restored. Ensemble’s founder, Hayes Gordon, would surely be proud.
And, in case you were wondering, Google AI says:
No, Pierre Curie did not die from radiation poisoning. He died in a street accident in Paris on April 19, 1906, when he was run over by a horse-drawn carriage. His death was a tragic accident, not a result of radiation exposure. While both Pierre and Marie Curie were pioneers in the study of radioactivity and exposed themselves to radiation, Pierre's death was not related to that. Marie Curie, however, did eventually die from aplastic anemia, likely caused by prolonged exposure to radiation.
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| Gabrielle Scawthorn as Marie Curie; Rebecca Massey as Hertha Ayrton in The Half-Life of Marie Curie, Ensemble Theatre 2025 Photo: Prudence Upton |
