There are a number of mysteries in 1st Stage’s “The How and The Why,” an intellectually stimulating and intriguing play by Sarah Treem. Many of those mysteries can’t be talked about without giving away elements of the play’s deliciously improbable plot. But two facts that are central to “The How and The Why” can be mentioned without fear of spoiling any surprise. The first is an old notion: when it comes to discovering new scientific ideas, women can hold their own against men. The second is that, when it comes to relating to other human beings, people rely on feelings, poetry, even popcorn before they rely on scientific fact.
At the beginning of “The How and The Why,” a young woman, Rachel Hardeman (Nora Achrati) enters a senior professor’s office at Harvard University. The older woman, Zelda Kahn (Elizabeth Pierotti), is engrossed in her work and doesn’t notice the younger woman. When Zelda does finally notice Rachel, their conversation is circuitous: it’s clear Zelda knew Rachel was coming, but now that she’s there, there’s nothing to talk about.
| Onstage |
| ‘The How and the Why’ |
| Where: 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Rd., McLean |
| When: Through November 20 |
| Info: $15 to $25; 703-854-1856; 1stStageTysons.org |
As the women circle one another verbally, it becomes obvious that there are more similarities than differences between them. Both are evolutionary biologists. Rachel has submitted an abstract of her work to an important conference that is about to take place in Cambridge. Zelda is on the committee of people who chose the speakers for the conference.
Most important, Rachel is twenty-eight and has come up with a brilliant theory of “Menstruation as a Defense,” a theory that Zelda feels should be presented to the conference. Zelda is now fifty-six. When she was twenty-eight, she came up with an equally ground-breaking theory called “The Grandmother Hypothesis,” for which she won an important prize.
Lee Mikeska Gardner keeps the play moving at a lively pace. Pierotti plays Zelda as superficially restrained and tough, the perfect scientist, a woman who had no qualms about going to Tanzania pregnant, unaccompanied by a man. Yet she also shows a sensitive side that responds to Rachel’s messy emotional life. Achrati plays a similar dual role: cool on the outside but given to panic attacks and strong responses to Zelda’s personality.
The drama plays out on Richard Montgomery’s beautifully detailed set, which first pictures Zelda’s well-appointed office full of African artifacts, then shifts to a dive bar in Boston.
In the first setting, surrounded by books and Tanzanian pots, Zelda and Rachel come to terms intellectually. In the second, holding glasses of white wine and bourbon, they reach out to each other emotionally, demonstrating two very effective, very different pictures of women not only surviving in a man’s world, but excelling in a world they have created themselves.
