Bridget Saracino and Tod Randolph

The play begins in the office Zelda (Tod Randolph) has inhabited for a long while. Rachel (Bridget Saracino) enters and the women are wary, nervous, and ill at ease. Zelda, an evolutionary biologist, is an advocate of the so-called "grandmother hypothesis" which suggests that menopause has enabled an "older" woman, after that has occurred, to be of assistance to her family when her daughter is, for example, pregnant and/or nursing an infant. The grandmother is then available and willing to help with other children who are not so young yet need some care and attention.

Rachel has come from New York City to a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called The National Organization of Research Biologists. Rachel, too, is an evolutionary biologist and she has another, very different idea about menstruation. She believes that it fights bacteria associated with sperm and protects the uterus; thus, menstruation is a defense. It negates toxicity. Rachel has arrived to present her paper for response at the conference. That seems, for most of the provocative first act, to account for Rachel's presence. That is, at least, the appearance.

Sarah Treem, playwright, has also been writer and/or producer for various episodes of television's "In Treatment," "The Affair," and Netflix' "House of Cards." The set, devised by Patrick Brennan, evokes, for me, "In Treatment." The author has also composed a number of plays. Treem, for The How and the Why, writes incisive dialogue, melding science with human interface. She has clearly researched (the theories are actual) and her writing is purposeful. Treem impressively creates a segue from science to human relationship.

Rachel is aggressive, and, to an extent, unfriendly. Zelda, uncomfortable, tries to welcome the younger woman. Gradually, we learn something of Zelda's past. So, too, Rachel explains that she is involved with a man named Dean. More is revealed and the first hour concludes. This much is certain: the air is tense, the women are brilliant in a cognitive sense, and each, in her way, is a maverick. That is not all.

The second act begins and it is Christmastime as the two women reconvene in a bar. The relationship between Zelda and Rachel augments in complexity since the question of Rachel's birth is pivotal. Rachel, ever agitated, continues to be confrontational and Zelda, however forced this may be, tries to be supportive of Rachel, whose paper received mixed reviews.

Nicole Ricciardi directs this two-hander which includes much talk and relatively little action. She wisely moves the two actors around to keep a physical flow. She allows both of these performers to demonstrate that risk is not an issue. Treem's play pushes hard, and stretches theatergoers to become more and more thoughtful as implications are presented. The play demands quality acting, and this is in full evidence.

Rachel is a young feminist who is, at various moments, hostile. She understands that it is terribly difficult for a woman of her generation to have children, maintain career aspirations, and succeed with all. Zelda has already made difficult choices. She accepts what she has done but, within Randolph's interpretation, shows a wistful side. Saracino's Rachel wants explanations and insists that she be heard. She says early that her theory will "change the way people have sex." Zelda has seen herself as a "sexual Magellan."

The How and the Why is everything but a light evening of theater and its conclusion, perhaps, is not fully satisfying. The playwright assuredly provides potent voices for her characters. The voltage between Zelda and Rachel is sometimes highly charged. Rachel, in particular, is not especially concerned with civility. She wants more because the origin of her birth and earliest years are, at the outset of this play, unanswered. Treem writes dialogue which is realistic even if it is unsettling. Each of her characters, who are not so dissimilar as it seems, has a distinctive, valued vision. They have this, too, in common: they fight for credibility within a discipline where men have held powerful sway.

The How and the Why continues through July 26th, 2015, at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater on the campus of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. For tickets, call (413) 637-3353 or visit www.shakespeare.org.

Photo: John Dolan

- Fred Sokol