cover art by Roz Francis
"Few new plays require a basic
understanding of quantum mechanics—the physics theories of matter and energy—for full appreciation. And when young playwrights are thinking of settings
for their plays, they don't normally alight on such less-than-sexy locations as
the Fermilab National Particle Accelerator Laboratory in west suburban Batavia.
But if originality and intelligence are the most
important qualities in attracting audiences to hear new work, Chicago scribe
Penny Penniston deserves enormous success with her smart, funny and thoroughly
captivating NOW THEN AGAIN....
Penniston has tried to use some of the issues found in and around quantum
mechanics (which involves great complexities of chronology and relativity) and
apply them to a triangular love relationship....
To describe how all this plays out would ruin the considerable pleasures of the
show. Suffice to note that present and past prove to be relative concepts.
Penniston's ideas are emotionally warm and intellectually stimulating."
Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
"One thing I particularly like is the
spate of unusual new characters that science brings to the stage...
In PROOF and NOW THEN AGAIN, the main characters, all in their twenties, find the
pursuit of difficult knowledge no less enlivening and nervous-making than things
like their careers, their families, their social graces, their hormones and
their heartaches. I can't recall seeing similar types on the stage
before...illuminating an obviously extant kind of life experience I'd never
before considered but was delighted to discover."
Bruce Weber, The New York Times
"The great thing about all this is that
Penniston makes the physics so utterly transparent that you can ride on the love
story and even feel like a minor genius, too. She makes physics fun..."
Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
originally produced by Baliwick Repertory, Chicago
4M, 1F
I S B N: 0-88145-197-5, $8.95