“The Full-Life of Hertha Ayrton” would have been a difficult title. Instead, playwright Lauren Gunderson has gone with the catchier “The Half-Life of Marie Curie,” which opened Tuesday at Off Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theatre. Audible presents.
Clearly, the two-time winner of the Nobel Prize for her pioneering research on radioactivity is the bigger marquee name. Ayrton was merely a British engineer, mathematician, physicist, inventor and suffragette who received the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water. She also invented a big fan that cleared the trenches of toxic gas during World War I.
Does the other “half-life” of Gunderson’s title refer to Ayrton, the devoted friend who gave Curie protection and comfort during the Pole’s affair with a married man, a scandal that clouded her second Nobel Prize? The half-life of Curie definitely refers to the lost research, money and reputation of this gifted physicist-chemist, as well as the half-life of uranium, which ranges from 25,000 to 4.5 billion years, depending on what kind you’re dealing with.
Despite Curie’s name in the title, Kate Mulgrew’s butch Ayrton is the major attraction. Playing Curie, Francesca Faridany must contend with a character who’s never feeling great due to that vial of radioactive stuff she carries around her neck. Also, she’s insufferably weepy over not being with the man she loves, and he just might have impregnated his wife! Gunderson lavishes all her best retorts and epigrams on Ayrton, and Mulgrew knows just what to do with them. She’s reminiscent of George Sanders in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” It’s also possible to see a touch of that independent puritan Katharine Hepburn peeking through. The actor delivered a great Kate in “Tea at Five.” She’s even better and more fun in “The Half-Life of Marie Curie.” Mulgrew used to be a mezzo, now she’s a true basso, and uses that voice to stupendous comic effect.
Gaye Taylor Upchurch’s direction can’t suppress Mulgrew or pump up Faridany’s performance enough to make it an even playing field. As written by Gunderson, Curie is simply a wet blanket, and it’s the perfect metaphor that the character takes a swim in the ocean with all her clothes on.
“Marie Curie” contains several nice comments about her dead husband, Pierre Curie. Otherwise, the play is chock full of witty complaints about the male establishment, as if these two brilliant women had nothing better to do than kvetch all day. Gunderson puts us in that comfortable position of being superior to early-20th-century wrongdoers who canceled Curie’s career. Much less comfortable would be a play that looked at our current Cancel Culture that banishes artists from the Metropolitan Opera and prevents Woody Allen’s latest film from being shown in the United States.
Broadway's 12 Top-Grossing Non-Musical Plays of All Time, From 'War Horse' to 'Harry Potter' (Photos)
Broadway isn't just for musicals. Here are the all-time top-grossing straight plays on the Great White Way, according to grosses compiled by the Broadway League up to Dec. 30, 2019. (These figures aren't adjusted for inflation, so recent hits at current sky-high ticket prices have a definite advantage.)
12. "700 Sundays" (2004-05; 2013-14)
Total gross: $32,029,177
Billy Crystal's autobiographical one-man show found favor in two separate runs on Broadway nearly a decade apart.
11. "Betrayal" (2019)
Total gross: $32,621,468
Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox and Zawe Ashton packed 'em in for the fourth Broadway production of Harold Pinter's time-bending drama.
10. "August: Osage County" (2007-09)
Total gross: $32,835,606
Tracy Letts' Pulitzer-winning drama became a huge hit on stage without any big stars -- and then a 2013 movie starring with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.
9. "Proof" (2000-03)
Total gross: $32,896,994
David Auburn's drama about a woman with a troubled legacy of both mental illness and genius-level math skills earned multiple Tony Awards, including for star Mary-Louise Parker.
8. "The Play That Goes Wrong" (2017-19)
Total gross: $34,341,708
This farce about an amateur theater company's mishap-prone production of a mystery play is another London import that found popularity on this side of the Atlantic.
7. "God of Carnage" (2009-10)
Total gross: $37,345,584
Yasmina Reza's barnstorming dramedy about two dueling couples earned the Tony for Best Drama -- as well as nominations for James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis.
6. "It's Only a Play" (2014-15)
Total gross: $37,500,966
Terrence McNally's backstage comedy was a huge hit thanks to the Broadway reteaming of Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, stars of the Tony-winning musical "The Producers" a decade before.
5. "Angels in America" (2018 revival)
Total gross: $40,937,028
The 2018 revival of Tony Kushner's two-part epic won three Tony Awards, including for co-stars Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane.
4. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (2014-16)
Total gross: $68,321,435
Another London import, Simon Stephens' adaptation of Mark Haddon's YA novel follows an autistic boy on a quest for the killer of his neighbor's dog.
3. "War Horse" (2011-13)
Total gross: $74,975,253
Michael Morpurgo's YA novel about a British boy's search for his horse in World War I inspired both this epic play, complete with life-size puppets, and Steven Spielberg's 2011 film.
2. "To Kill a Mockingbird" (2018 - )
Total gross: $105,773,236* (as of Dec. 30, 2019)
Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of the beloved Harper Lee novel may have been snubbed by Tony nominators for Best Play, but it has been drawing crowds since opening in December 2018.
1. "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two" (2018 - )
Total gross: $$163,017,626* (as of Dec. 30, 2019)
The stage sequel to J.K. Rowling's saga about the now-grown boy wizard has extra advantages -- since it's a two-night (and two-ticket) epic that plays in a musical-sized auditorium to diehard Potterheads.
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You don’t need an orchestra — or songs — to draw audiences
Broadway isn't just for musicals. Here are the all-time top-grossing straight plays on the Great White Way, according to grosses compiled by the Broadway League up to Dec. 30, 2019. (These figures aren't adjusted for inflation, so recent hits at current sky-high ticket prices have a definite advantage.)
Robert Hofler, TheWrap's lead theater critic, has worked as an editor at Life, Us Weekly and Variety. His books include "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson," "Party Animals," and "Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange, How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos." His latest book, "Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne," is now in paperback.
