When Being Topical and Well-Researched Is Not Enough

For about 15 or 20 minutes, “The How and the Why” makes the viewer certain that a scintillating mystery is unfolding.The setup: Two women, both scientists, meet in an office with something secret hanging heavily between them. Their dialogue, by Sarah Treem — a playwright and screenwriter whose flair for irresistible intrigue has benefited series such as “The Affair,” which she co-created, and “House of Cards” — is punctuated by awkward silences. Both are clearly tense, and the younger woman, Rachel, displays a defensiveness bordering on hostility even though she’s apparently meeting Zelda for the first time. What has brought them together at this juncture, and why the discomfort, the chill in the air?The reveal arrives early on, and while it’s artfully delivered, it involves the most obvious scenario one could imagine. The relationship that develops between the characters, too, is saddled with clichés that are reinforced by repetition, making the play drag at points, particularly toward the end.That’s too bad, because “The How and the Why” raises some genuinely important and topical questions about gender and its role in agency. Rachel, who is in her late 20s, has developed a theory about the purpose of menstruation in human beings. The middle-aged Zelda, a celebrated evolutionary biologist — also Rachel’s field — earned acclaim at roughly Rachel’s age with a hypothesis related to the role of menopause.Ms. Treem has clearly done her own scientific research; when the women expand on the clinical details of their studies to express their passion for ideas, and debate, their exchanges are among the most lyrical and compelling in the play.It’s when Ms. Treem tries to forge connections with the personal baggage her characters carry that “The How and the Why” moves to shakier ground. Zelda has never married — always putting work first, or so she claims. Rachel initially dismisses marriage as an institution, but a top concern seems to be her relationship with the fellow graduate student she’s been dating for years.Although Zelda encourages Rachel to settle down with her boyfriend at first, she is aghast when the fledgling scientist makes this priority plain. Rachel, in turn, appears to resent Zelda’s advice — she has some cause to, but explaining here would require a spoiler — and judges the older woman’s choices as reflective of her generation.“Does your Grandmother Hypothesis keep you warm at night?” Rachel asks Zelda at one point. “You feminists,” she growls later, inserting a four-letter word. “You’re so hypocritical. You go on and on about female empowerment and all you did for us, but the truth is, you’re ten times harder on us than anyone else.” Each defines what another four-letter word means to her. “Love is magic,” Rachel declares, once again slipping in a profanity but this time with a positive connotation. “And like magic, you have to believe in it.” “You want to know what love is?” Zelda counters. “It’s stress. It’s just stress…. Basically, love is the Stockholm syndrome, gussied up.”In Ms. Treem’s defense, both women are obviously protesting too much, and under the venerable director Austin Pendleton’s sensitive, astute guidance, neither emerges as a simple stereotype. Arielle Goldman and Karen Leiner are thoroughly convincing as, respectively, Rachel and Zelda; Ms. Greiner gives the veteran academic an elegant world-weariness, while Ms. Goldman mines her character’s wounded humanity as the brilliant, troubled young woman slowly lets her guard down. There is one lovely moment near the end, when Rachel and Zelda, who have been positing seemingly conflicting scientific theories, come to a sort of intellectual truce. “So they can both be right?” Rachel marvels. “They can both be right,” Zelda responds — and you know she’s not just talking about the theories. If the little revelation doesn’t quite make up for the play’s cornier and more labored touches, it reminds us how and why Ms. Treem became a successful writer — and encourages looking forward to her future work.

When Being Topical and Well-Researched Is Not Enough

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