EMILIE: LA MARQUISE DU CHÂTELET DEFENDS HER LIFE TONIGHT
by Lauren Gunderson
directed by Iris Sowlat
The Curtain Theater, Bromery Center for the Arts
March 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 & 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Matinee March 9 at 2 p.m.
What makes a life well-lived?
Lauren Gunderson’s Emilie weighs her choices at UMass Theater
If you looked back at your life, would you feel like you made the right choices about your career? What about your relationships?
Those are the stakes in UMass Theater’s upcoming production, Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends her Life Tonight. Set to run in the Curtain Theater March 1-9, Lauren Gunderson’s emotionally rich, poignant play is about a woman in the 1700s who pursued both scientific knowledge and romance throughout her life. In the play, she ponders the question of whether she can have it all, a struggle that likely resonates with many — particularly women — who come see the play.
“I think that modern culture still has a hard time really knowing that a woman can be all the things; she can look like Barbie AND be a physicist,” says director Iris Sowlat.
Gunderson’s play is based on a real person. Emilie was an accomplished scientist and mathematician in the 1700s, known for writing the first mainstream physics textbook in French, as well as translating Newton and Leibniz’s work into French, and then building on those works with her own contributions to the field.
Emilie was also fearless in love — although married, she followed her heart and took several lovers throughout her life, including the man she’s most famously associated with, writer and philosopher Voltaire. The play takes place as she is dying after giving birth to a lover’s child.
“I tend to be drawn to pieces that say something about feminism, and that also say something about relationships … and all of the intersections of feminism, femininity, popular culture, and interpersonal relationships within history and over time,” says Sowlat.
Sowlat noted that she’s been fortunate to be joined by Nathaniel Akingbemi as the show’s dramaturg and Elliott Robin Ball as the assistant director. In addition to their research and theatrical eyes on the material, Akingbemi and Ball have STEM backgrounds that help to ground the science and medical elements of the play.
Setting the production in the time period will be costumes by Emily Irene Peck — working in period silhouettes including corsetting, the cast, under Sowlat’s direction, are finding the characters’ unique ways of moving through the space.
Gunderson’s clever script has Emilie “staging” scenes from her own life to examine her choices; the set by Calypso Michelet, paired with lighting by Taylor Jaskula, allows the action to flip smartly among these moments.
Join UMass Theater for a play that examines the big questions that lie at the heart of what it means to be alive.
Recommended for audiences age 16 and up; discussion and depiction of death in childbirth, romantic relationships.
Tickets:
$17 — general admission
$5 — for students, youth, and senior patrons, as well as Card to Culture patrons
Tickets on sale through the UMass Fine Arts Center Box Office (call 1-800-999-UMAS or visit the box office website) as well as at the door on the night of the show.
The UMass Department of Theater is pleased to participate in the Card to Culture program. For details, please visit our Card to Culture page.
