By: Courtney-Joy Breeden
The Kean Theatre Conservatory presented its final production of the semester, “They Promised Her the Moon,” written by Laurel Ollstein, from April 4-12.
The production follows the life of aviation pioneer Jerrie Cobb. Although the story touches on her childhood up to adulthood, it takes place in 1961 when Cobb was 30 years old.
The first act of the play begins with Cobb entering an isolation tank in preparation for heading out to space. It serves as a gateway into exploring her life through the idea that in the tank, her mind reminisces on all it took to get to that moment.
Act 2 pivots into the present environment, where, after nine hours, Cobb is taken out of the isolation tank and thrust into a world of fame and conflict common for a woman in the early 1960s entering a male-dominated field.
The production of the play was performed in the Bauer Boucher Theater Center, placing the audience in an immersive environment through its staging, sound, and lighting.
Dr. Susan Speidel, adjunct professor at Kean and award-winning theatre educator who directed the piece, gave insight into the many creative choices that maintained the setting of the play.
“I like that it is based in fact, it is historical, but I also really like that it is very open-ended. There is nothing in the script that says you have to do it this way,” said Speidel. “So we were able to interpret it for ourselves and create our own production of it, which was really challenging but very exciting.”
The play is set in theatre-in-the-round, a form of theatrical staging meant to engage and captivate, commonly used in the Bauer Boucher Theater. However, Speidel’s and student scenic designer, Stacia Belcuore’s, ideas for the set design are where the heart of the story resides.
“I kept going back to this idea that Jerrie starts out and then kind of goes on this journey to find her place in the world, right? And it’s almost a circle… and Stacia looked at me and said ‘Oh like an orbit.’”
In the middle of the stage stood a large, circular platform with many functions throughout the production, like the isolation tank, a place to sit, a bed and the sky, but overall, it served as a symbol of the flow of memory.
“You know, our memories come and go from our minds very fluidly… sometimes we don’t even summon them, they just happen,” Speidel said. “And that’s the idea that when Jerrie’s in the isolation tank, those memories come and go. So we wanted the play to be very fluid, and a lot of movement, and no big stops for scenery, which is why there is no scenery, really.”
Scenic elements decorated the set in Act 1, including the large space training operation table full of controls in the corner of the room, chairs, and an occasional stool. In Act 2, it transformed into a congressional table with a matching defendant’s stand. The platform was the only constant element in the play.
The performers, consisting of 13 Kean students, went into depth on the challenges of becoming complex characters within a complex storyline. The students’ roles ranged from characters who were memories of Cobb to those who existed in the present, some even playing various roles to embody the full story of Jerrie Cobb.
Alina Grace Lessing, a junior pursuing a BFA in theatre performance, played Jerrie Cobb. She said it was challenging playing a character in different stages of life in such a confined amount of time.
“It was hard to keep track of who I was in each sequence because Jerrie goes from being a child to an adult to a child again, and so there was a lot of in and out…It was very… fluid,” Lessing said.
Gabe Soto, a graduating BA theatre major, played American Physician, Dr. Randy Lovlace, and expressed the challenge of disconnecting from certain aspects of the play.
“I’m one of the only characters who is not a memory or part of a memory, I have no connection to Jerrie beyond her adulthood, it was hard to keep a constant disconnect from her story.”
Zahira Hartsfield Bey, a freshman studying for a BFA in theatre performance, made her Kean debut playing several roles, including a lab technician, reporter and classmate of Cobb. Bey discussed the intricacies of becoming both memory and present as well as learning how to interact with an environment where the past and present exist on one plane.
“It was hard at times understanding whose presence to react to. During the congressional hearing, you’ve got the mom, Helena, walking in and out, baking a pie, and saying all these things, but she’s not really there in the hearing; she’s a memory for Jerrie,” Bey said. “So understanding that I don’t really hear a lot of the characters was tricky because you want to react, but you have to remember you can’t.”
The cast worked with a dramaturg, Keira Marques, a fellow Kean student, and read lots of research and books on the politics, characters, and life during the 1930s-60s.
Makenzie Kuntz, a senior speech-language hearing sciences major minoring in theatre, played another aviation trailblazer and businesswoman, Jackie Cochran. Kuntz shared how tricky it was becoming her character and lessons learned from getting to know the character.
“It was a challenge, embodying someone who has already existed… it’s not the same as becoming a fictional character…” Kuntz said. “ I learned a lot from Jackie, from her being a woman who took on so much during a time when women didn’t have as many rights, and just seeing how she takes up space in a room unapologetically… I found confidence in myself through learning about her.”
Speidel worked on the play for years and even got to read it soon after its 2019 premiere. She urged students to understand what Kuntz uncovered during her self-reflection.
“As a woman, I find the idea of how opportunities have changed for women to be very important… I thought it was really important to tell the story about women who were completely qualified… but were denied the opportunity just because they were women. But the other part of it was that my father was in World War 2 and flew bombers,” Speidel said. “….These are stories that have to be heard.”
History explains the now and pushes society forward to accomplish more. Without Jackie Cochran, would Jerrie Cobb truly believe in her dreams to one day have the confidence to surpass the sky?
They Promised Her the Moon is a production about family, religion, equality, gender roles, and politics, and about a woman whose dream was to exceed every expectation society had for her and create her own path. The story encourages the audience to persevere, to fight, and to fly.
You must be logged in to post a comment.