Photo: Max Alexander
directed by
Ali Wall
|  |
The first play by New Zealand playwright Stuart Hoar to reach these shores is about the real-life astronomer Beatrice Tinsley, perhaps the brightest star in her field but one which is not allowed to shine.
Her failure to hit the heights, Hoar tells us again and again, is due to the chauvinism of her senior male colleagues but, with little in the way of poetry or real theatricality, the work remains stubbornly earthbound.
.
|
|
|
Born in 1941, Tinsley grew up in New Zealand and was clearly a scientist of some brilliance but it was only on leaving her husband and children and taking a far-off post in an American university that she started to find her feet. She went on, we’re told, to be a world leader in modern cosmology, only to die tragically of cancer at the age of 40.
The conflict in Hoar’s play is drawn from the pull of motherhood and the expectations of a male-dominated society against the need for Tinsley to fulfil her potential. Ironically, it’s the explanations about the origins of the universe (the writer prides himself that the science in Bright Star is accurate), rather than the predominant domestic situation, that lends itself to greater theatrical expression.
These opportunities pass fleetingly, though, and we’re returned repeatedly to the living room where things work towards a predictable end.
Michelle Witton, one of the co-producers, plays Tinsley and clearly has a passion for her story but maybe she’s a little too close to it. Matt Wilson as the husband and Jeff Mash the deceptively sympathetic professor who blocks her advance are particularly good and all cast members do their best with what they’re given but it’s an uphill struggle.
Science and art need not be at odds and there are examples of scientific biography, the not dissimilar story of Alan Turing for instance, becoming effective dramatic material.
There’s no doubt an engrossing piece of drama to be made out of the life of this fascinating woman but it fails to take wing here.
| |
|
|
London reviews
|
 |
For more theatre reviews, come and visit us at Exeunt
Accolade, Finborough
Water, Tricycle
Antonioni Project, Barbican
Greenland, National
Du Goudron et des Plumes, Barbican
King Lear, Roundhouse
Double Falsehood, Union
Twisted Tales, Lyric Hammersmith
Less Than Kind, Jermyn Street
theatre
|
|
| |
|
|
