TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO
WOMAN HAS GONE BEFORE
After seeing SPACE at Central Square Theater, the line that haunted me came from Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to travel into space: “Rockets leave behind the thing that got them up there—their fuel tanks.” Like those fuel tanks, the first group of courageous and highly motivated women aviators who sought opportunities as NASA astronauts were ultimately left behind—yet they provided the force that allowed Jamison and other women to play a role in space exploration.
Monica Risi, Hui Ying Wen, Kaili Y. Turner, MK Tuomanen, and Mitra Sharif
Monica Risi and Mitra Sharif
This is far from the only memorable line in this complex, exciting, innovative and inspiring production. L M Feldman‘s tight script illuminates the numerous ways these women were jerked around with rescheduled and ultimately cancelled testing and training that disrupted their lives as workers and caregivers. While most theatrical outings rely on the successful use of pacing and structure along with technical features, these elements cohere remarkably well under co-creator of the play, Director Larissa Lury. The spare use of color, light, and electronic tones evoke the sense of possibility offered by the cosmos beyond planet Earth and its draw of the mysteries beyond (sets Qingan Zhang; lights John R. Malinowski; sound Nate Tucker).
Hui Ying Wen and Valencia Proctor
With actors playing multiple roles, SPACE highlights 14 historic women—some still living—and their struggles to conquer the skies and reach space. As with the challenges faced by the women who were once part of NASA’s Mercury 13 Women in Space program, it relies on choreographed portrayals of the testing program (Lindsay Torrey, movement director), as well as imagined interactions among historic women, pioneers like Bessie Coleman (Valencia Proctor) and Hazel Ying Lee (Hui Ying Wen), both born in 1892. Coleman was the first African-American woman and first Indigenous person to earn a pilot’s license, while Lee became the first Chinese American woman licensed to fly, later serving in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program during World War II.
Catharine K. Slusar, Kaili Y. Turner, Hui Ying Wen, and MK
Mitra Sharif, Hui Ying Wen, Catharine K. Slusar
Jackie Cochran (Catharine K. Slusar) commanded the WASP program and played a crucial role in advancing women pilots and supporting the Mercury 13 program, which recruited and trained highly qualified women as astronauts. Despite outperforming most male trainees, these women were never given the opportunity to go to space. A pilot who broke records for speed and distance, Cochran embodied the contradictions of her time. While the Cold War stimulated investment in NASA and the space program, it also promoted an image of women as nurturing full-time homemakers with no need or desire for professional accomplishments.
Barlow Adamson, Kaili Y. Turner
Cochran amassed a fortune through a line of cosmetics that capitalized on her success as a pilot. She used her wealth to fund the Mercury 13 program, though she excluded women of color. Ultimately, she ended the program in 1962 after testifying before Congress. She argued that efforts to send women into space should be discontinued in favor of prioritizing the goal to land men on the moon. Cochran’s push to advance Mercury 13 was supported by William Randolph Lovelace II (Barlow Adamson), an aerospace medical researcher who later became NASA’s Director of Space Medicine.
MK Tuomanen
Geraldyn Cobb (MK Tuomanen) was among those who carried on the mission of getting women into space even after the Mercury 13 program was cancelled. (Tuomanen is also Sally Ride, who we find was not the only closeted lesbian among this cohort of air- and space-pioneers.) The physical and psychological demands faced by those women and those who came before and after them are portrayed through calisthenics and stunts, which included tricks like spinning a basketball on one finger by Mitra Sharif as Jean Hixson.
Kaili Y. Turner, Hui Ying Wen, Monica Risi, Mitra Sharif, Valencia Proctor, MK Tuomanen
Valencia Proctor
While SPACE finds it gravitational center with the women of the Mercury 13 program, it extends a century into the past with its inclusion of Bessie Coleman, and a century into the future with figures such as Christina Hernandez (Monica Risi); Jasmin Moghbeli (also Ms. Sharif), who commanded the SpaceX Crew-7 mission in 2022; and Mae Jemison (Kaili Y. Turner), currently the director of the 100 Year Starship, a program to promote interstellar travel within the next century. “Only by setting a goal we can never reach can we reach beyond our current system,” Jemison says in the play. “The capabilities needed for a successful interstellar mission are the same capabilities needed to sustain life on this planet.”
photos by Maggie Hall
SPACE
a Catalyst Collaborative@MIT and Brit d’Arbeloff Women in Science production
Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge
Wed-Fri at 7:30; Sat at 2 & 7:30; Sun at 2
ends on February 23, 2025
for tickets (starting at $25), call 617.576.9278 ext. 1 or visit CST
for more shows, visit Theatre in Boston
