In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, researchers at the Harvard Observatory made tremendous strides in organizing and expanding our knowledge of the stars. Observatory director Edward Charles Pickering became famous for advances in stellar classification and spectroscopy. Much of Pickering’s work was made possible by the labor of his computers—not the machines we know today, but women hired to perform the time-intensive and often tedious task of examining the photographs Pickering took with the observatory’s 15-inch Great Refractor telescope. One of the computers was Henrietta Swan Leavitt, whose discovery of the relationship between the luminosity and period of variable stars called Cepheids is still the basis for much of our knowledge about distances in space.
Lauren Gunderson’s play Silent Sky, now on stage at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC, is a lyrical dramatization of Leavitt’s life. Gunderson’s witty, fast-moving script explores what it must have been like to dream of seeing the stars at a time when women could not use the world’s best telescopes—and what kind of person might be able to carve out her own astronomical projects despite the obstacles. The production is a high-energy interpretation of Gunderson’s play that entertains and inspires. However, some slightly strange acting choices and the script’s decision to give a fictional character a major role create a frustrating gap between the real Leavitt and her life on stage.
“Pickering’s harem”
Silent Sky follows Leavitt as she leaves her family’s home in Wisconsin for a job at the Harvard Observatory. Leavitt, an ambitious Radcliffe College graduate, has dreamed since childhood of pursuing astronomy. But when she arrives in Cambridge, she is disappointed to learn that her role will be limited to a desk; like the other computers, she is to examine photographic plates of the stars and classify them by brightness. The “girls” in “Pickering’s harem,” she is told, are not allowed to use the Great Refractor.
The curious and observant Leavitt decides to make the best of her task. She becomes convinced that the number of Cepheids she’s finding, and the wide variability in their period and luminosity, must have some sort of significance, and she begins pursuing her personal project at night after her officially assigned tasks are completed. The play shows Leavitt laboring over a period of years to make sense of her data, even screaming in frustration at one point. Watching those realistic struggles unfold onstage makes the moment when she sees a pattern emerge all the more satisfying.
Much of the play’s success hangs on Laura Harris, the actress playing Leavitt. She has by far the most lines, including some hard-to-sell poetic monologues about the stars and the universe. I came away from Ford’s Theatre conflicted about her choices in the role. It’s a spirited performance, but Harris’s Leavitt sometimes seems petulant and childlike rather than ambitious and curious, and her lines and speeches about her fascination with the stars never feel quite sincere. In the early scenes in particular, Leavitt seems more excited about leaving Wisconsin than about pursuing astronomy.
The standout performance is delivered by Holly Twyford as Williamina Fleming, Pickering’s former maid and first female computer. Fleming is given most of the funniest lines, which certainly helps, but Twyford’s performance manages to be both playful and grounded. Nora Achrati is no-nonsense and forceful as computer Annie Jump Cannon, who (among other achievements) famously developed the OBAFGKM stellar classification scheme. As Leavitt’s sister Margie, Emily Kester has the somewhat thankless job of nagging the play’s heroine to come home and spend more time with her family. But Kester’s Margie comes across as a sympathetic figure—in part because Harris’s Leavitt tends to seem peevish and even cruel during their exchanges.
Historical missteps
Gunderson is a prolific playwright whose work often draws from real-life stories about women in science; she has also written about the lives of Ada Lovelace, Émilie du Châtelet, and Marie Curie. As a historian myself, I care about historical accuracy, but I also know that a playwright like Gunderson may have to alter or skip some details to create a compelling script. For example, Silent Sky makes no mention of the years that Leavitt spent as an unpaid worker at the observatory and instead takes her straight to a paid post. That kind of omission doesn’t bother me; a play is not a documentary, and I don’t expect a recitation of every fact we know about the real Henrietta Leavitt.
Although I’m comfortable with shortcuts, I am less content with falsification. Silent Sky includes one fictional character, a young astronomer named Peter Shaw who becomes a love interest for Leavitt. Although Jonathan David Martin does what he can with the role, the romance is unconvincing. Shaw has had everything handed to him by his well-connected family; he exhibits only minimal interest in astronomy, and he’s distant and haughty during many of their interactions. It’s not hard to imagine why Leavitt’s energy and passion would intrigue Shaw, but it’s never clear why Leavitt might reciprocate his interest.
Even if Shaw had been more compellingly written, however, I question the decision to add a romantic arc to Leavitt’s story. In a play that’s nominally devoted to Leavitt’s scientific achievements, spending so much time on an imaginary romance with a man who never existed feels like a jarring misstep. I am not sure what lay behind that decision. Did Gunderson fear that Leavitt, a remarkable woman who succeeded in a time when the deck was very much stacked against her dreams, would not be compelling enough without a Peter Shaw in her story? Whatever the reasons, I found myself wishing that the script had allowed Leavitt’s love of the stars and her struggle for recognition to stand on their own.
Imitating a starry sky
Two standout features of the Ford’s Theatre production are set and costume design. The staging of the computers’ shared office evokes the real-life Harvard Observatory, and props such as the delicate photographic plates and Leavitt’s hearing aid bring hundred-year-old technology to life. The Ford’s Theatre team uses an array of hanging light bulbs to mimic the starry sky, brightening and dimming specific bulbs to imitate the pulsing of Cepheids. It’s a lovely, effective way to get the astronomical point across. Meanwhile, Cannon’s shifting wardrobe highlights her increasing interest in women’s suffrage, and subtle changes to Leavitt’s costume signal her emotional state—and the state of her physical health.
Overall, Silent Sky is a fast-moving two hours of theater that anyone who loves astronomy or the history of science will enjoy. However, history buffs may want to learn more about some of the gaps between what we see on stage and Leavitt’s real life. And those hoping to get to know the Harvard computers may want to supplement the play with Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe or George Johnson’s Miss Leavitt’s Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe.
Silent Sky is playing at Ford’s Theatre through 23 February.
