The Nora Theatre
Company has a winner in Sarah Treem’s THE HOW AND THE WHY, playing at the
Central Square Theater through Oct. 21st. Treem wrote and produced
all three seasons of the brilliant HBO series about a psychologist and his
patients, called IN TREATMENT. (It is, rather was, my favorite television show.
Alas, it’s no longer on the air.) She creates characters who burn with urgency
and passion and although THE HOW AND THE WHY is ostensibly about women in the male
dominated field of science, at heart it’s about a clash of characters.
Two female
evolutionary biologists lock horns: one older and wiser and the other, young
and rash and full of promise. Her research, in fact, threatens to supplant the
older woman’s famous, accepted theory (on the role early woman played in the development
of the advanced human brain). Clearly both women are driven …but what drives
them and why? That’s what we find out and along the way we’re enticed by some
fancy theoretical footwork on the subject of biology, specifically the
reproductive (and post-reproductive) kind--- as well as some delightful and
amusing give and take.
Director Daniel
Gidron manages to keep the pace brisk, even in the throes of dense evolutionary
theory. Debra Wise is elegant and controlled as the brusque senior scientist,
while Samantha Richert’s character truly suffers with her insecurity. Wise is
such a deft actress that she can convey boundless kindness and affection with a
simple touch, creating one of the loveliest moments in the play. She and
Richert make Treem’s story resonate beyond the dialogue. In the words of the
professor’s (and my) beloved poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, they “take up the
song.”