This is an amazing year for Timeline Theatre! Imagine: 30 years of bringing quality and historical theater to the Greater Chicago theater audiences, and now in their own home, bringing a very special World Premiere Play to this new stage. Not just any play, but one based on a book written by Jonathan Eig, dealing with a topic that changed the world: “The Pill”!

How does one take a subject like this and change the book into a theatrical experience? This is done by bringing in a playwright, in this case, Jessica Huang, to take each of the incidents leading up to the actual development of the pill and allow us ( the audience) to see how each step was achieved. While that is the playwright’s interpretation, the combination is then interpreted by the director ( a sharply connected direction by Sandra Marquex) and placed before a live audience.

The story is told by a cast of six amazing performers. The key to the story is our narrator (Played to perfection by Maria Victoria Martinez) who plays Ramona Delgado and a host of others. She greets the audience at the onset, showing us the book and advising that she is indeed the star of the show. In the first few minutes, we are led into her world as she brings each of the characters ( all based on actual people and history) to the stage and the incredible set designed by Regina Garcia). One can see that Marquez worked closely with the playwright and the scenic designer so that the story would move swiftly and each scene would flow in a manner that would be easy to follow. I will advise that there is language not suitable for everyone and there is male nudity.

The first of those involved that we meet isMargaret Sanger ( the always incredible Janet Ulrich Brooks), who has always wanted women to be able tocontrol their own bodies. Contraception is against the law ( for women). Men can use prophylactics, but women had no choice. Sanger wants to teach women about birth control and show them that their bodies are theirs to use as wanted. Her actions are thwarted and then she meets Goody Pincus (   handled to perfection by Mitchell J. Fain, who also plays Jonathan Eig in the final scene of this glorious story). He is willing to risk development of a pill that taken once a day for 28 days will give women the ability to NOT get pregnant. What he will need to do this is money- lots of money.

Now we must meet Katherine McCormick (Chicago favorite Mary Beth Fisher truly brings this character to life) a wealthy widow who feels that women are being held back from success, and that this pill will change the world, so money is no object! The others that bring this to life are Min Cheuh Chang ( Rammel Chan) Pincus’s lab manager/assistant and John Rock ( deftly handled by David Parkes) a gynecologist who was working with women who were unable to become pregnant who was more than willing to work on this project.

They moved their work out of the United States, bringing it to Puerto Rico in 1956. This allowed them to evade United States laws. Later, the pill was approved for purposes other than ” birth control, ” and as the 60’s approached, approval for contraceptive purposes was granted. There were side effects that caused alarm, and yes, lessons were learned from the results, both bad and good. Over the years, the pill has become safe and effective.

On the technical side, I found that the sound (Matthew Chapman) and lighting ( Conchita Avita), along with the projections ( Mike Tutaj) were spot on and the props ( Saskia Bakker) were amazing. Christine Pascual’s costumes were of the period, and the movement direction by Raquel Torre was unique.

This is a piece that will cause you to think. It is quick and somewhat to the point. Will it go on to Broadway and make it’s mark there, or is it better off being recreated as a film? These are questions that I heard come up at the reception following opening night. Only time will tell us what happens next. Meanwhile, Timeline tells us what happened before, and in this production, you will gain some true knowledge on”The Birth of the Pill”.

 

“The Birth of the Pill” will continue Thru – Oct 4th with performances as follows: