The Half-Life of Marie Curie

The Half Life of Marie Curie -Gunderson
Audio performance by Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faridany
4 stars

This was an audible subscriber freebie. I haven’t been either interested or impressed by most of them, but this was very good. It is essentially a radio play, albeit one that is digitally downloaded. The actors portray Marie Curie, just after she has won her second Nobel prize, and the less well known mathematician Hertha Ayrton. The story begins with a distressed and depressed Curie attempting to escape the press after having her affair with a younger man exposed.

It’s a bit of herstory I knew nothing about. It’s a very feminist story. The audio production was well done. It made me want to read a more comprehensive biography of show more Marie Curie. show less

How refreshing this play was.

Gunderson is the master at highlighting the incredible accomplishments of women. This two-person play is about the friendship between Nobel-prize winner Marie Curie and the electromechanical engineer and suffragette Hertha Ayrton. Both women were brilliant and both fought against the sexism and absurd double standards in their field. The audible production of the play is perfect and I would love to see it live.

Surprisingly good for a free monthly Audible book. A quick program about the struggles of Marie Curie in the aftermath of some affair (she was widowed; Paul Langevin was separated from his wife at the time), right before winning her second Nobel. Her friendship with the British engineer Hertha Ayrton was portrayed as being key to her overcoming this (although in reality her assistance in WW1 in constructing and operating field x-rays to save allied soldiers at the front was probably more important in rehabilitating her reputation). Overall a very good book, and while I don't really care about the romantic life of Marie Curie, it is interesting how she interacted with her scientific contemporaries, and this is probably in other biographies.

Marie Curie, a More Interesting Year*
Review of the Audible Original audiobook edition (Dec. 5, 2019) of the currently running (until Dec. 22, 2019) stage play The Half-Life of Marie Curie

The Half-Life of Marie Curie dramatizes a true-life episode from Marie Curie's (1867-1934) life in the summer of 1912 when she was being vilified by French society as the other woman in an affair with her deceased husband Pierre Curie's student Paul Langevin. She is invited to England to spend time with her friend Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) to escape the stress of the situation. The retreat provides an opportunity for them to discuss their struggles as women and scientists in years when Ayrton could not even be given a degree by Cambridge University and show more Pierre Curie had to lobby in order to share the first Nobel Prize with Marie in 1903. The title Half-Life alludes to the radioactivity exposure that would eventually lead to Marie's death, but also to this turning point in her life.

The performances by Francesca Faridany and Kate Mulgrew were excellent in the dual leads. The performance was recorded under studio conditions without audience ambiance but with full stage foley and sound cues. Faridany performs Curie with a French accent, which most people would probably expect and accept. In real-life she probably had more of a Polish accent though.

The Half-Life of Marie Curie was one of the free Audible Originals for members for the month of December 2019. Playwright Lauren Gunderson was one of the initial group of 15 chosen for Audible Emerging Playwrights commissions in 2017, several of which have already appeared as Audible Original audiobooks.

*I couldn't resist this lede after the disappointment of Audible Originals' A Mind of Her Own from March 2019.

See a photo from the stage production at https://static.playbill.com/dims4/default/c0c724c/2147483647/resize/800x450%3E/q...
Photo of Francesca Faridany as Marie Curie (left) and Kate Mulgrew as Hertha Ayrton (right) by Joan Marcus, linked from Playbill show less

This short audio book is a conversation between Marie Curie and her friend Hertha Aryton during a two month period she spent with her in England in 1912, It's informative, interesting, well told and well narrated by Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faridany as the two women. It talks about her struggles when she fell out of favor because of an affair she was having and her life just prior to receiving her second Nobel prize. You'll enjoy this short (a little over 2 hours) true story.

It's a great story and I learned a lot of history (which I hope turns out to actually be true) but the dialog too often sounded like it was from a Lifetime TV movie.