If you’re struggling to comprehend live theatre’s appeal to those who truly love the creative art form, then sit down, if even for a few minutes, with Bea Quarrie.
Should you somehow not come away with a better understanding of that appeal, you will gain on some level an appreciation for the passion and commitment that is at the heart of Quarrie’s more than five decades of bringing stories to stage life, be that as a director or actor.
At the Guild Hall on Rogers Street in East City, Quarrie donned her director’s hat as she sat down for a chat with kawarthaNOW about Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky, the fifth play of the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2024-25 season, which opens March 21 and runs for 10 performances until April 5.
“Theatre is an art form that continues to puzzle and continues to challenge,” assesses Quarrie.
“You can go to sleep. I don’t want to do that. This keeps me awake; keeps the old brain cells working. It comes with so many challenges in terms of teamwork, in terms of concepts and ideas, so there’s always something that’s intriguing, something elusive. You’re always chasing something.”
“Just to pull something off the page and make it come to life so the audience will enjoy it .. this communing together is magical. It’s like nothing else. That’s why a lot of actors keep working for pennies. It’s addictive.”
In bringing Silent Sky to local audiences, Quarrie is satisfying an addiction more than five decades in the making; a live theatre legacy that took root in 1970 when she moved to Peterborough from Guelph, secured a job teaching drama at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School and shortly after made her Peterborough Theatre Guild acting debut, playing eight roles in Dylan Thomas’ Under Milkwood.
She says Silent Sky, co-produced by Ina Stenner and Antje Burness and starring five actors including Lindsay Unterlander in the lead role, checks a lot of boxes in terms of piquing her interest and keeping it, and in terms of the themes it presents.
Written in 2011 by Atlanta native Lauren Gunderson as a commission for California’s South Coast Repertory Theatre, Silent Sky relates the true story of the 19th-century astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt who, when she begins work at the Harvard Observatory, isn’t allowed anywhere near a telescope or to even express an idea.
Along with a group of female “human computers” (women who performed calculations by hand), Leavitt charts the stars for renowned astronomer Edward Charles Pickering who, having no time for the women’s theories, calculates projects in “girl hours.”
Undaunted, Leavitt, in her free time, attempts to measure the light and distance of stars. At the same time, she finds herself taking measure of her life in an attempt to balance her dedication to science with family obligations and the possibility of love.
“A friend of mine said ‘There’s this play I just adjudicated that’s the most popular and most often produced play in North America called Silent Sky’,” recounts Quarrie, adding she had never heard of it let alone read it.
“I got a copy and I read it and I went ‘Now I understand why.’ It’s such a life-affirming play. It’s historically based, but it lifts you up at a time when we all need that — something positive, something that makes you feel like you’re part of a bigger plan. It’s about what makes us human.”
Quarrie notes Leavitt developed a system for measuring the distance to stars “that is still used today. She was pretty well unheard of until this play came to be.”
After studying thousands of Cepheid variable stars in two dwarf galaxies, Leavitt discovered how their intrinsic brightness is directly related to their pulsation period. Her discovery provided astronomers with the first “standard candle” (a term coined by Leavitt) for luminosity with which to measure the distance to other galaxies.
Leavitt’s breakthrough provided a crucial tool for measuring vast cosmic distances, leading to the discovery of the expanding universe. The famed astronomer Edwin Hubble, who was prompted by Leavitt’s discovery to position the Milky Way galaxy away from the centre of the universe, often said she deserved the Nobel Prize for her work.
While a Swedish mathematician tried to nominate her in 1925, he learned she had died of cancer at the age of 53 four years earlier, making her ineligible for a Nobel Prize as it is not awarded posthumously.
Tasked with portraying this little known but strong character, actor Lindsay Unterlander says all the characters, including the one she’s playing, “are beautifully developed and beautifully flawed, but that makes them so charming and lovable, and relatable even though they are historical figures from more than 100 years ago. Their struggles and their story are universal.”
“We’re always curious about what’s going on outside us,” she says. “We’re always overwhelmed with family obligations and things that pull us away from our passions.”
Of Leavitt, Unterlander says she “fell in love with her right away. I understood her desire to be taken seriously. I loved her humour. She has a habit of blurting and speaking her mind that sometimes gets her in a bit of trouble. I can relate to that. I often say what I’m thinking before I think about my phrasing.”
“I’m blanking on who it was, but there’s this great actor who said ‘You know when you pick up a script and read the role, if you hear it in your voice, you know it’s yours.’ That was how I felt the first time I read it. My partner read every other role and I read Henrietta’s. We were sitting in the kitchen. Bea had just given us the script and we were like ‘Let’s read’.”
Not unlike many actors drawn to a particular role, Unterlander says there are similarities between her personality and that of Leavitt that are helping her make a connection.
“Where she was excluded from the world that she wanted, I remember being a kid and saying ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a professional athlete … a hockey player or a baseball player,’ and having that bubble burst. Just like the way Henrietta is told she’s not an astronomer because she doesn’t have the degree, I didn’t have the genitalia to be a professional athlete.”
Unterlander adds her goal “is that Lindsay is never on stage.”
“If I feel I’m Lindsay up here, that’s when I’m breaking character. I don’t see myself in her, but I understand her. I see her as someone who is fiery and charged up and loud. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Someone else might see her as awkward and aloof. A different actor could play her differently, but the fun thing is how you interpret or understand her, with the help of your director.”
For Quarrie, Unterlander — who been part of previous Guild production casts including that for Cats — possesses and projects Leavitt’s spirit.
“She’s got that curiosity about the world that’s so fundamental to exploration — not just exploration in terms of astronomy, but exploration in terms of the human condition,” says Quarrie.
“If a director casts a show right, 90 per cent of her work is done. We have a lot of wonderful interactions. The chemistry is good on stage. But it was her spirit — a feisty determination to find things out and, if it isn’t what it could be, she’s going to go for it. She’s going to dig deep.”
With the next few weeks promising rehearsal upon rehearsal, both Quarrie and Unterlander are excited in anticipation of the tie that binds them together: the presentation of their work before an audience.
VIDEO: “Silent Sky” promo
While performing in front of an audience “is a whole different level of adrenaline” according to Unterlander, she admits her favourite thing about theatre is the rehearsal process.
“(It’s a) time to explore and discover new things, and meet your character and the characters you’re playing against,” she says. “I enjoy the process — the challenge of learning the lines and trying out different things. It gives you something to talk about and debate and discuss.”
Quarrie echoes that sentiment, terming the process “the most fascinating thing.”
“I keep saying to the actors ‘You’ve got to play process. Don’t play resolution.’ By the time we get to opening night, certain things will be resolved in terms of where we’re going with it, but not where we’re going to end up.”
“If you’re questing all the way through to find the best possible solution for every single thing that’s put in your way, it’s exciting. Then it comes alive. The audience senses that. It’s not dead on delivery.”
Joining Unterlander on stage for Silent Sky are Lyndele Gauci, Kevin O’Neill, Laura Lawson, and Lela Fox-Doran, with Lisa Dixon as assistant director.
Other credits include stage management by Marilyn Robinson, assisted by Hayley Griffin-Montgomery, with set design by David Green and and lighting and projection design by Esther Vincent.
Silent Sky will be staged at the Guild Hall at 364 Rogers Street in Peterborough’s East City, with evening performances at 7:30 p.m. on March 21 and 22, 27 to 29, and April 3 to 5, with 2 p.m. Sunday matinees on March 23 and 30.
Assigned seating tickets are priced at $30 for adults, $27 for seniors, and $20 for students and can be purchased by calling 705-745-4211 or online at www.peterboroughtheatreguild.com.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2024-25 season.
