Mercury Poisoning

‘I’d like to get down from the rocket, please,’ says the new recruit. ‘I’m menstruating.’ This is not the kind of snippet you normally hear in plays (stage, TV or film) about the beginnings of space travel. But Madeleine Stedman is exploring a new angle: a history of women in space, from the two competing countries, America and Russia.

She presents us with two women of the 1960s. Molly, from Oklahoma, (Teadora Matovic) is an American pilot with experience and with big, urgent dreams of becoming the first woman in space, and Valeria (Violette Ayad), a Soviet factory worker, who is swept/pushed along to take that crown in 1963.

As this battle for first place is played out, a third woman faces similar problems, though not in space. Nicole (Shawnee Jones) is a Black actress in Hollywood experiencing unspoken difficulties in her line of work, playing a small part in a Space Epic Series on television. She’s learned to tread softly, until a big opportunity comes her way.

While men idly wonder if their country is sending a ‘pack of whores’ into space, Colonel John Glenn is on the committee that stops eminently suitable Molly from leaving the Earth.

Playwright Madeleine Stedman is definitely showing talent with her play, directed to the hilt by Kim Hardwick, and played by a large company of twelve in this tiny theatre. Portraying excellently a myriad of parts, the twelve leap, run and do all sorts of exercises in the course of the nearly two-and-three-quarters-hours running time.

The company needs the whole floor space for movement, so there’s no space for design. Instead, there’s an overhead cloud/umbrella/parachute that changes colour occasionally.  

There being only a sketchy on-line program, with hardly a word on how the play came to be written, I’m holding back on any speculation. It’s obviously been under supervision for longer than three years and is correctly described as ‘mammoth’.

It would be excellent to see this play done to a scale that suits the writing. Go, Madeleine Stedman!

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Clare Hawley.