Last week, Something on the Green staged a production of “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” directed by Grace Belgrader ’27. Performed in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts’s Fishman Studio, the cast and crew guided audience members through a thought-provoking, 90-minute rendition of Paul Zindel’s 1965 play.
The play, which was on Broadway in the 1970s and won Zindel a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, follows the complicated dynamics of the Hunsdorfer family sisters — Tillie, played by Saja Alaggad ’28, and Ruth, performed by Lulu Grieco ’28 — who struggle with toxic critique from their short-tempered mother, Beatrice, brought to life by Sabine Thomas ’28.
The show opens on an illustration of Beatrice’s dismissive parenting style, with the mother claiming that some people are “born to speak” and others “born to listen.” Mourning her dream of becoming a dancer — having “lost her dancing legs and got varicose legs,” she says — Beatrice takes her discontent out on her daughters as well as Nanny, played by Lottie Doughty ’26, an elderly woman she cares for.
Despite Beatrice’s depressing outlook on life, Grieco’s charming performance as Ruth offered a pleasant deviation from the show’s darker themes. Packed with energy and an enthusiastic, fast-paced delivery, the character provides much-needed comedic relief during the beginning of the show — that is, before delving into grim plot lines later on.
After Ruth violently wakes from a dream, Beatrice returns to stage for another cynical monologue. While recounting stories from her childhood, including a specific nightmare, Beatrice drifts from a momentarily comforting figure to despondent and pensive, asking her daughter, “What’s left for me?”
Thomas’s nuanced performance and range as an actress brought Beatrice’s complex character to life. Switching between the mother’s capricious emotions and near-constant insecurities, her impressive performance added to the show’s depth.
Throughout the show, Tillie tends to marigold seeds exposed to radioactivity — ultimately earning her a spot as a finalist in the school’s science fair. After being consistently mocked by her mother, sister and schoolmates throughout the first half of the show, Tillie gains confidence as the show progresses.
The science fair also features one of Tillie’s classmates, Janice Vickery, played by Priyanshi Bagga ’29. The crowd laughed as Vickery recounted her eerie science experiment, explaining how she boiled the skin off of a cat so she could reconstruct its skeleton. She hopes to do the same with a dog for her next project.
While Tillie ultimately ends up winning the science fair, her success is overshadowed by another one of Beatrice’s breakdowns — where she goes so far as to kill the children’s pet rabbit before exclaiming that she hates the world.
But even the actresses’ impressive performances couldn’t completely make up for the show’s sometimes monotonous plot. Although there were stand-out moments scattered throughout, the story offers no apparent call-to-action, instead leaving the audience confused on the ultimate moral of the sad tale.
