STAR STRUCK

Awe-inspiring lighting design (Eduardo M. Ramirez) and beautiful sound effects and music (Kai Bohlman with Violet Wang) elevate Lauren Gunderson’s fictionalized biography of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (1868–1921) to a meditation on the meaning of human life in relation to the cosmos. This Brit d’Arbeloff Women in Science Production, directed by Sarah Shin, also dramatizes the long-overlooked role of women in advancing understanding the universe.

Jenny S. Lee

Lee Mikeska Gardner, Erica Cruz Hernández, Kandyce Whittingham, Jenny S. Lee

Jenny S. Lee brings Leavitt to life as a firecracker personality, boldly abandoning her father and sister in Wisconsin to head for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has been hired by the Harvard College Observatory to join “The Harvard Computers,” a group of female scientists charged with analyzing data from glass photographic plates. But it’s 1902, and despite their abilities, these women are not allowed access to the Observatory telescope. How to respond to the sexism of the men they work with is a topic of ongoing conversation between Leavitt and her colleagues Williamina Fleming (Lee Mikeska Gardner) and Annie Jump Cannon (Erica Cruz Hernández). They complain about it, joke about it and put up with it, though, because in the end, they are passionate about their work. “We’re cleaning up the universe for men and laughing at them behind their backs,” they comment.

Erica Cruz Hernández and Jenny S. Lee

Jenny S. Lee and Max Jackson

It’s quite an accomplishment on the part of Gunderson and these three actors to dramatize the work these women are doing. Basically, they are looking at images of stars—faint and tiny shadows on glass plates—to determine their brightness, or luminosity. Following last Thursday’s performance, Harvard College Observatory curators exhibited a couple of the original glass plates and notebooks Leavitt used to formulate her groundbreaking discovery of the cycles of fluctuations in brightness of certain types of pulsating stars known as Cepheid stars. Leavitt’s achievement allowed the better-known astronomer Edwin Hubble to begin to calculate the astonishing size of the universe and the distances to galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Jenny S. Lee

The work of precise analysis and calculation doesn’t offer a lot of dramatic possibilities. Gunderson plays fast and loose with Leavitt’s biography to create the drama such a story would require to be shown on the stage. In Silent Sky, Leavitt has a suitor, Peter Shaw. Max Jackson does a fine job of portraying the transformation of this entirely fictional character as a sort of a period Everyman who moves from belittling the potential of the women working in the Observatory to coming around to admiration and support for Leavitt’s contributions. It is heartening to learn from the biographical exhibits in the theater lobby that each of the three eventually, after decades of work, did attain professional recognition.

Jenny S. Lee

Likewise, Gunderson gives Leavitt a sister who stays home in Wisconsin, portrayed by Kandyce Whittingham, who brings a beautiful voice to the production. While Henrietta Leavitt is portrayed as a borderline atheist with a devout sister, the reality was that Henrietta herself was apparently quite pious. I’d argue that Gunderson is justified in splitting Henrietta’s personality in this way in the service of drama. The sister Margaret can be read as the elements of Henrietta’s personality or aspirations that had to be abandoned to allow her to pursue her scientific passions.

Erica Cruz Hernández, Jenny S. Lee, Max Jackson, Kandyce Whittingham, Lee Mikeska Gardner

Kandyce Whittingham and Jenny S. Lee

The scenic design by Quingang Zhang supports this interpretation through a two-tier set that allows simultaneous glimpses of life in Wisconsin and Cambridge, an approach very much in keeping with Einstein’s revelations about the nature of space-time that took place in the course of Leavitt’s career.

Kandyce Whittingham and Jenny S. Lee

Jenny S. Lee

While the title of the play hints at Leavitt’s progressive hearing loss, eventually leaving her completely deaf, the play doesn’t emphasize that condition. Her colleague Cannon’s hearing was diminished as well, leaving me to wonder whether it might have been partly this reduction in one sense that gave these women what seems to be a nearly superhuman ability to attend to the tiniest of details to gain an understanding of the vastness of the cosmos.

Max Jackson

photos by Nile Scott Studios

Silent Sky
Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge
A Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production
ends on October 5, 2025
for tickets, call 617.576.9278 ext. 1 or visit CST

for more shows, visit Theatre in Boston