Review: SILENT SKY at Theatre Memphis
What did our critic think of SILENT SKY at Theatre Memphis? Can anything make a person feel more insignificant than to look up to the heavens to try and count the stars? How many are up there? What makes them shine? Just how far away are they anyway? So many questions. Perhaps the only feeling more insignificant than being a man asking these “big” questions, is being a woman told she’s not allowed to even ask them. Henrietta Leavitt was a real woman living in America at the turn of the 20th century who sought to, not only ask, but answer the questions of what is truly “out there,” not only in this universe, but beyond. She is credited with discovering Cepheid variables (a type of star that pulsates radially). Her life as an astronomer at a time when women weren’t encouraged to venture far from home, let alone to the cosmos, is on display currently in SILENT SKY at Theatre Memphis. Under the direction of Ceclia Wingate, Levitt’s world of wonder spins (figuratively and literally) in a lyrical fashion that supersedes the understanding of most mortals while still pulsating amongst the stardust. In a word, it shimmers.