BY SARAH TREEM directed by Keira Fromm BACKSTORY YOUR GUIDE TO TIMELINE PRODUCTIONS YESTERDAY’S STORIES. TODAY’S TOPICS. From Artistic Director PJ Powers Sarah Treem a message the playwright writing more than 150 years is the opportunity to watch arah Treem’s The How apart—tackle many of the two exceedingly smart women Sand the Why premiered at questions that lie within Time- who are blazing trails in their the McCarter Theatre starring Line’s mission of exploring field, with nary a man to be Mercedes Ruehl (with Emily history. What is the difference found on stage. It’s a depress- Mann directing) and went between then and now? How ingly rare thing to see in on to productions at Interact Dear Friends, and why have we evolved to American theater, just as it’s Theatre and Trinity Repertory, We laugh, we cry, we are born, where we are today? still depressingly uncommon among others. Her play to find women at the helm in A Feminine Ending premiered we die, My remarkable colleague Playwright Sarah Treem. many professions, science and at Playwrights Horizons and Who will riddle me the how Janet Ulrich Brooks brought theater included. went on to productions at Sundance Theatre Lab, Ojai How to Make It in America and and the why? this play to us, with a passion South Coast Repertory and Playwrights Festival, the the Netflix series House of unlike any I’ve seen in the 10 Happily, there’s someone like How you are you? Why I am I? Portland Center Stage, among Screenwriters Colony, Hedge- Cards, starring Kevin Spacey. years I’ve known her. And if Sarah Treem, who early in her Who will riddle me the how others. Sarah’s other plays brook and Yaddo. In addition She currently has a new pilot you’ve witnessed Janet on career has already built a body and the why? include Empty Sky, Orphan to her theater career, Sarah called The Affair in production stage in such TimeLine shows of work in theater, TV and film Island, Human Voices and wrote and produced all three with Showtime. The world is somewhat; it goes as 33 Variations, All My Sons, that is as impressive as it is di- Mirror Mirror. seasons of the acclaimed on somehow; Not Enough Air, Lillian and verse. Any fan of the TV shows Sarah has taught playwriting HBO series In Treatment, for at Yale University, where she But what is the meaning of more, you know that Janet House of Cards, In Treatment She has been commissioned which she won a Writers Guild then and now! is not someone who lacks or How To Make It In America by Playwrights Horizons, earned her BA and MFA. She of America award and was recently moved from Brooklyn These excerpts from the poem passion! Hearing Janet talk can attest to the intelligence, Southcoast Repertory and nominated for a Humanitas about the play and then having daring and savvy of Sarah’s Manhattan Theatre Club to Los Angeles with her hus- “The ‘How’ and the ‘Why’” by award. She also was a writer/ band, Jay, and their son, Henry. Alfred Lord Tennyson speak our entire Company read it, work as a writer and producer. and developed work at the producer for the HBO series very much to the heart of we saw how and why the play And she has plenty more in Sarah Treem’s terrifically sparked her intense interest. the works, including a new play, When We Were Young On Evolution, the Grandmother Hypothesis, Menstruation and more smart play of the same name. In a seemingly simple format— and Unafraid, opening this Both Tennyson and Treem— two female scientists meeting spring at Manhattan Theatre the scientists and talking—The How and Club, starring Cherry Jones. It’s regrettable the Why probes a tremendous hile the characters in there is disagreement and a Williams’ article “Pleiotropy, number of provocative issues. I couldn’t be happier to wel- that one of the The How and the Why significant number of scientists Natural Selection and the Evo- It delves into women’s health, come Sarah and her work to W things notable are fictional, the science dis- who favor group selection). lution of Senescence” appeared genetics, adoption, balanc- TimeLine, brought to life by Ja- cussed in the play is based on His 1966 book Adaptation in Evolution in 1957 and laid about this play is ing work and family, and the net and the equally formidable real theories by real scientists. and Natural Selection worked out the outline of what is now the opportunity generational clash between a actress Elizabeth Ledo, under to clarify this central question known as “the grandmother woman in her 50s and one in the direction of Keira Fromm. George C. Williams was to watch two about whether natural selection hypothesis.” His original the- her 20s, with the younger one I look forward to discussing an evolutionary biologist exceedingly smart works to favor elements as ory suggests that menopause facing different career oppor- with you the many, many who helped shape modern small as a gene or as large and prolonged life after meno- women who are tunities and challenges than questions that this play sparks theories of natural selection. He as a whole species. Richard pause might be advantageous blazing trails in the other experienced amidst —all the how’s and why’s that pioneered the prevailing theory Dawkins’ 1976 book The Self- for humans. It does not suggest their field, with the 1970s feminist movement. got us to this moment. that natural selection works at the level of the gene and the ish Gene built upon Williams’ that grandmothers might con- Fondly, nary a man to be It’s regrettable that one of the individual—not for the benefit ideas and made them available tribute to the success of their found on stage. things notable about this play of the group or species (though to a wider audience. grandchildren. It does introduce Timeline: Origins of Evolutionary Biology several major concepts, includ- Because of her lack of back- 610-546 BC The Greek phi- ing the idea that senescence ground in the field, Profet was losopher Anaximander suggests (or aging) is synchronized by ill-equipped to deal with the that all life evolved from fish in the sea. natural selection, and the idea criticism lobbed against her of antagonistic pleiotropy—that ideas. In 1996, her theories 1735 Carl Linneaus publishes one gene may control multiple were rebutted point by point by the first volume of Systema traits, including at least one anthropologist Beverly Strass- Naturae, laying the foundations Pictured (from left): George C. Williams, Kristen Hawkes and Sarah Hrdy. Margaret Profet. for modern taxonomy. that is beneficial to the fitness mann in the Quarterly Review of the animal and another of Biology. 1809 Charles Darwin is born in ates us from other great apes. ternal Instincts and How They that is detrimental to it. In this “I found myself Shrewsbury, England. She has published on the Shape the Human Species, and In 2005, Profet disappeared way, a gene that caused both torn between 1830 Charles Lyell pub- grandmother hypothesis in Natural Selection and Mothers from the Boston area and increased reproduction early in lishes Principles of Geology. His many scientific journals and and Others: The Evolutionary my work and was missing for seven years. life and aging later in life would insights about the layers of in Grandmotherhood: The Origins of Mutual Understanding. Friends and family were still be adaptive evolution. an admittedly history in geological strata are Evolutionary Significance of concerned and hinted she had Her work shocked people adorable but influential for Charles Darwin. Further development of the the Second Half of Life. She serious psychological problems. because she discussed the 1831 Charles Darwin leaves on grandmother hypothesis and has studied in hunter-gatherer insatiably In 2012, she was reunited with prevalence of infanticide and the HMS Beagle for a five-year the potential advantages of populations, including the Ache her family after having been abortion across the animal demanding journey. His observations of human grandmothers to their of Eastern Paraguay and the sick and living in poverty. Profet kingdom. She also has theo- human baby.” nature during the trip will be the offspring continues to be done Hadza of Northern Tanzania. said she had not realized her basis for his theories. rized that female monkeys will by other scientists, such as – Sarah Hrdy in Discover family was looking for her until Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is an copulate with many males to 1857 William Acton, lead- Kristen Hawkes. magazine, March 2003 a friend saw it online. anthropologist who uses a lot of confuse parentage—so the ing physician and Victorian Kristen Hawkes is an evolutionary biology in her work. males will not kill offspring— Beverly Strassmann is a sexologist, writes Functions and when, in 1993, she published Disorders of the Reproductive anthropologist at the University She received the W.W. Howells and that primates are designed professor of anthropology at her findings on the evolution- Organs in Youth, in Adult Age of Utah and a Collaborative Prize for outstanding contribu- for alloparenting because it is ary role of menstruation as a the University of Michigan and and in Advanced Life, in which Scientist at the Yerkes National tions in biological anthropology so costly and time consuming defense against pathogens the director of a 27-year study he writes that most women Primate Research Center. Her in 2000 and 2012 and is the to raise a young primate.