{"id":4427,"date":"2021-07-09T16:26:53","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T15:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4427"},"modified":"2021-07-11T09:17:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T08:17:31","slug":"profile-hedy-the-life-inventions-of-hedy-lamarr-beauty-and-the-marriage-of-art-and-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4427","title":{"rendered":"HEDY! The Life &#038; Inventions of Hedy Lamarr: Beauty and the marriage of art and science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul><li> A multiple award-winning play about the intriguing life of \u2018the most beautiful woman in the world\u2019 who also invented technology used in our cellphones, is live streamed from Iceland tomorrow. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p> What comes across in Leslie Lee\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/23\/theater\/leslie-lee-playwright-of-black-life-dies-at-83.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">obituary in the New York Times<\/a>, is Lee\u2019s authenticity. A black American playwright born to working class parents in 1930, Pennsylvania, he wrote plays about black life, and made no bones about it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\n\u201c&#8230;He\nbestowed integrity on people,\u201d director Ruben Santiago-Hudson is\nquoted as saying by obituarist Bruce Weber, \u201ceven\nwhen they were ne\u2019er-do-wells or people whose intentions weren\u2019t\nthe best for other folks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nThat\nauthenticity infuses New\nYork playwright\nand performer Heather Massie\u2019s work, for Leslie was her mentor and\ndearest friend. It is because of Leslie that we are able to watch\nHeather\u2019s multiple award-winning play, <em>HEDY!\nThe Life &amp; Inventions of Hedy Lamarr <\/em>live\nstreamed from Reykjavik at 5pm this Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nHedy\nLamarr, in case you are unaware, was an inventor who during WWII\ndeveloped radio frequency hopping so that American torpedoes could\nmore accurately hit their targets. Some of that knowledge came from\nlistening when her despotic munitions dealer husband (her first) had\nher hanging on his arm as a trophy wife at meetings with the likes of\nMussolini and his war mongers. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nShe\nleft him, fleeing to Paris, and followed her interrupted acting\ncareer, which took her to America where she was flaunted as \u201cthe\nmost beautiful woman in the world\u201d. She then upset the Hollywood\nestablishment after the war by establishing her own production\ncompany and also developed improvements to aeroplane aerodynamics\nwhile dating business magnate and pilot Howard Hughes.\nShe\nwas posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in\n2014.  \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> This life of art and science, played amidst the turmoil and change of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century, is what Heather portrays in<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heathermassie.com\/hedy\/awards\" target=\"_blank\"> an acclaimed show<\/a> that has scooped at least 17 awards, and is to be performed at the Reykjavik Fringe Festival at 5pm on Saturday, and you can get a ticket to watch the live stream thereof at the <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalartsfestival.co.za\/show\/hedy-the-life-and-inventions-of-hedy-lamarr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">National Arts Festival<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nHeather\nwas supposed to be performing the show in Makhanda last year, but\nCovid took care of that. Then, says Heather, it was to be on stage at\nthe National Arts Festival this year, but Covid put a lid on her\ncoming to SA. So Heather applied to the Reykjavik Fringe, and the US\nEmbassy in Iceland gave support. Then, she says when she spoke to NAF\nartistic director Rucera Seethal, they realised the Reykjavik show\ncoincided with the NAF dates, so Rucera clicked her fingers and said\nlet\u2019s hook the two together, tethering the gossamer network\ncriss-crossing the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nIt\u2019s\na network of fellow minds and imaginations that brought Heather to\nSouth Africa in 2017, by way of Zimbabwe when she assisted Leslie\nwith classes he was giving at the Intwasa Arts Festival in Bulawayo\nin 2008, which led to her returning to Zimbabwe with her play in\n2017, and someone suggesting that if she\u2019s performing in Bulawayo,\nshe may as well put the play on in Cape Town while she\u2019s down in\nsouthern Africa. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> And so she did, at the Alexander Bar Upstairs Theatre (sadly now lost to lock downs). She also performed at the Makukhanye Art Room in Khayelitsha, in George, at Theatre on the Square in Joburg, and the Sci Bono Centre. <em>HEDY! The Life &amp; Inventions of Hedy Lamarr<\/em> was also billed to play the SciFest in Makhanda last year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Science is the thread running through the art, connecting her to Hedy Lamarr\u2019s incredible story, and with Leslie, who studied English and Biology and worked as a bacteriologist and pharmaceutical researcher before playwriting. Heather studied astrophysics first, pursuing acting after taking a drama course in between her science studies in order to gain her required university degree credits.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> A further synchronicity is that Ryan Bruton, who is on the National Arts Festival technical team, saw her perform in Cape Town and connected her to the National Arts Festival and SciFest, is now living in her home state of Virginia where she studied to be an astronaut, and overseeing the live stream from Reykjavik.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Tomorrow we\u2019ll have the privilege of seeing Heather inhabit the character of Hedy Lamarr, along with 30 other characters she plays in an inspirational performance that reaches across cultures and generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <strong><em><strong>Don\u2019t miss<\/strong><\/em> HEDY! The Life &amp; Inventions of Hedy Lamarr <em><strong>is live streamed on the National Arts Festival website at 5pm tomorrow. Log in on <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/nationalartsfestival.co.za\/show\/hedy-the-life-and-inventions-of-hedy-lamarr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">nationalartsfestival.co.za<\/a><\/strong><\/em><strong><em><strong> and purchase a ticket for R40.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Photograph by Al Foote.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<pre style=\"text-align:right\" class=\"wp-block-verse\"><strong>This\nis a sponsored article.<\/strong><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A multiple award-winning play about the intriguing life of \u2018the most beautiful woman in the world\u2019 who also invented technology used in our cellphones, is live streamed from Iceland tomorrow. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4427\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[986],"tags":[1152],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4433,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions\/4433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}