Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who died in 1979, is one of the many female scientists whose name is less well known than it should be. Astronomy, the field in which she worked, was so male-dominated that she had to leave her native Britain and move to the US just to be able to practice it. She exchanged one Cambridge for another, and the first woman to head a department at Harvard.
As a graduate student, she made the paradigm-shifting discovery that stars are made of hydrogen and helium, rather than iron, as was commonly believed. Early in The Lightest Element, we see a 25-year-old Cecilia defending her ideas before the leading expert of the time, Henry Norris Russell. Julian Wadham plays him with an indulgent air: he seems supportive but still expects Cecilia to pour his tea. But the more she explains, the more exasperated he becomes, until he explodes: “Don’t you know when to be quiet?”
It’s a great scene and probably the drama’s most dramatic moment. From then on, we infer, Cecilia’s career was one of perseverance, underpaid and underappreciated. Playwright Stella Feehily focuses most of her narrative on Cecilia’s attempt, decades later, to become Harvard’s chair of astronomy. Maureen Beattie’s steely portrayal presents a woman who may have learned when to hold her tongue, but who has also learned how to keep her space. She has, to use one character’s words, the “requisite iron”.
Annie Kingsnorth provides counterpoint as the preppy Sally, a student journalist sent to interview her with an ulterior motive. Sally’s creepy editor boyfriend (Steffan Cennydd) wants a scoop that Cecilia and her Russian husband will issue to the House Un-American Activities Committee. It provides some entertaining moments between the two, especially when Cecilia lets her guard down and introduces the young woman to Polish vodka.
But the danger never quite bites, and Feehily leans heavily on the journalistic device to download Cecilia’s biography. Sarah Beaton and Johanna Town’s screen and light projections provide an elegant complement to the extra performance, but cannot quite break the dry, academic feel of the production. Sally’s journey is well marked – from eating ice cream sundaes when we first meet, to her final encounter with her boyfriend who remarks that she drinks “hard liquor”. But Cecilia’s story never quite takes off. Nevertheless, she persisted.
