Karen Zacarías has a busy mind.
Perhaps too busy, or too filled with ideas and conceits to slow down and make her thoughts more bite-sized.
Or more clearly parallel.
Zacarías’ play, “Legacy of Light,” at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre through April 6, is an ambitious piece that swirls between centuries, the 18th and 21st anyhow, eddies between different attitudes towards parenthood and different occasions of birth, takes up science and women’s contributions to it, and show us people in a flurry to do the right thing while preserving semblances of their personal freedom and individuality.
So much is happening, including applying scientific theories to love, a marathon of concentration is required just to keep up with it.
Much of what Zacarías has to say is amusing and thought-provoking, especially when it deals with Voltaire and Isaac Newton, but “Legacy of Light” might sprawl too far for its own good between genres, subject matter, and the comparison of one woman scientist facing childbirth to another.
It tries too hard to encapsulate what seems to be an ever-expanding galaxy of notions into one play. “Legacy of Light” is about so much and excites so much curiosity, it never settles into a rhythm that allows it to evolve and take you with. Its separate threads, centering around known woman scientists of their time, don’t intersect quickly or transparently enough to the play to be taken as a whole.
Piecemeal, there are moments of delight and revelation. Zacarías and her characters are witty. They are unconventional and can turn a neat phrase. As a continuum, it and Sarah Rasmussen’s production for McCarter tend to lose one along the way, especially in “Legacy’s” contemporary scenes. Sequences build steam. The production on the whole doesn’t.
It’s fun to see how everything from both centuries ties together at “Legacy’s” end, and several individual scenes have impact, but other sections have a “much ado about nothing” quality to them.
I’m not talking in terms of Shakespeare and Beatrice and Benedick. I mean they don’t engage as securely or entertainingly as other passages. The 21st century story can get muddy at times. Maybe because it doesn’t have the assistance of Voltaire or Newton, or even the focal character of the 18th century sequences, the fascinating, plain-spoken questioner of Newton, Émilie du Châtelet, a woman of many gifts including confident independence, intellectual and romantic, and keen insight into life and love as well as science.
Zacarías’ parallel, and eventually intersecting, timelines don’t have equal heft. Characters from the 21st century don’t sparkle or seem as much in command of situations as their 18th-century counterparts. “Legacy of Light” suffers in the time travel, even when the time zones magically meet (again through the Countess du Châtelet’s will and unbounded ingenuity).
Rasmussen’s production, opulent and physical, is more like a tennis match than a play. You watch one volley in captivation and wade through another hoping it will pass quickly and lead to something more absorbing.
The juxtaposition becomes disjointing. It prevents “Legacy of Light” from gaining traction that might make one sequence inform another rather than seeming separate from it.
Yes, the primary character from both eras are esteemed scientists. Yes, they both face imminent motherhood, but with different attitudes and different potential consequences. Yes, they both insist on incorporating motherhood into their ongoing careers. Émilie du Châtelet and Olivia, from the 21 century, have a lot in common, but the parallel is more noted that poignant in this production.
The same goes with the wonderfully genealogical doings at the end of the play. They’re clever and only slightly foreseen, but they don’t trigger the thrill or enchantment such revelations usually do.
The show I saw was the last preview, and things may have tightened between it and the opening performance 19 hours later, but the wishes and concerns of Olivia never seemed equal to those of the Countess and didn’t generate the same interest in or regard for the character.
“Legacy of Light’s” first scene carried a lot of promise. It’s a romantic scene between Émilie and a young swain, an assistant to Voltaire, and it has all of the markings, in action and dialogue, of a French comedy.
The tone becomes more serious, or more to the point, when the totality of Émilie’s life becomes known. She is a famous scientist, an astronomer who translates Newton’s “Principia” and other scholarly texts and then refutes some of the namer of gravity’s key tenets. She is also a woman who wants variety in her life while being a devoted mother and discreet wife.
In Princeton, “Legacy of Light” comes into fuller focus when the details and details of Émilie’s life are in the forefront. The details and decisions of Olivia’s life, and that of the woman who agrees to be a surrogate mother and carrier of a child that will go to Olivia once delivered, don’t carry the same weight or seem as dramatically intense.
Olivia’s life is much more slapdash and impulsive than Émilie’s, but somehow her story seems neater and less fraught with genuine dilemma than Émilie’s.
Émilie seems to have a lot to contend with while Olivia seems to approach motherhood as a lark, an ephemeral notion, rather than an understood trust and responsibility. I, for one, found myself feeling unsympathetic towards Olivia, her husband, and her surrogate. (Ironically, in a QR game in which McCarter audience members can learn which “Legacy” character’s attitudes most match their own, I was paired with Olivia!) The modern situation seemed scattered and messy while the 18th century conflict seemed handleable by the poise, logic, and sensibility of the Enlightenment.
In general, the engage-disengage sequence of McCarter’s “Legacy” had me watching the play without much passion or involvement. I was following it more than savoring it.
That wasn’t true of every scene. The best for me were the ones in which characters broke the fourth wall to speak to the audience about how a scientific principle applied to daily life, and especially love. These were clever and contained some of Zacarías’ most canny writing.
I also enjoyed a variation of those “lectures” when Olivia, late again for an appointment she overlooked, abridges a 90-minute speech about the current astronomical state of the universe into a 90-second synopsis. It was fun to hear and truly enlightening.
The best part of Olivia’s story is when she talks about her immersion into her work. The parts about motherhood, going the surrogate route, and possible buyer’s remorse are more integral to the crux of “Legacy,” being a champion scientist, partner, and mother simultaneously, but Olivia grabs us most when you to see the zeal and excitement with which she approaches her research and what it owes to Newton and Émilie du Châtelet.
“Legacy” takes two meanings in Zacarías’ play. They are the continuation of scientific study from Émilie to Olivia and the way Zacarías weaves in genealogical ties between Émilie and the surrogate’s baby Olivia will be mother to and raise. The second turns out to be more important to the overall play, but the first is where the meat and fun are.
Lenne Klingaman wins our regard as Émilie, a woman whose work is groundbreaking but often discounted by the male-dominated Académie Française of her time. Klingaman neatly conveys Émilie’s fusslessness about convention and search for the provable truth.
Kimberly Chatterjee shows the flightiness of Olivia while revealing the joy she gets from her work. Trey DeLuna is classically romantic as Émilie’s young lover and Voltaire’s rival for her affections. He is properly irritating as Olivia’s fearful brother. Allen Gilmore is a Voltaire who admires his own genius but can come down to earth when a situation warrants. Gina Fonseca is best as the practical 21st-century 21-year-old who figures out how to get what she wants. Zack Fink transforms well from normal to neurotic as Olivia’s husband.
Whether conceiving an 18th century French boudoir/salon or a fantasy orchard, Andrew Boyce displays elegant instincts. “Legacy’s” opening setting is classic with wonderful embellishments such as a gold astronomical chart and stars on white walls. His final set, the orchard, is just as impressive. Raquel Aquino’s costumes suit characters in both eras, but if Millie, the surrogate, really wants to be a fashion designer, Aquino has to give her more desirable clothes. The eccentricity doesn’t work. If I was reviewing Millie’s atelier, I’d say, “Stay away!”
Jane Cox and Tess James’ lighting adds to the wit Zacarías and Rasmussen seemed keen to achieve.
Oh, by the way, the 21st century scenes of “Legacy of Light” take place in Princeton.
Legacy of Light, Matthews Theatre at McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton. Through Sunday, April 6. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $25 to $73. www.tickets.mccarter.org or 609-258-2787.
Zack Fine and Kimberly Chatterjee play 21st century couple Peter and Olivia in 'Legacy of Light' at McCarter Theater through April 6. Photo by Daniel Rader.,
