In The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, currently playing at Silver Spring Stage (through May 24), the character Janice doesn’t enter until after the intermission. Janice is not central to this play. In fact, this is her only appearance in the play. She is the main competitor to Tillie (Daphne Wheeler) in their school’s science fair. Tillie is a member of the family whose struggles are at the center of the play. It is Tillie’s science project that gives the play its title. Tillie is the ugly duckling of the play who, with the encouragement of some of her teachers, is about to display some swan-like qualities. Because of the family’s dire condition and her role in that system, Tillie has all of the audience’s sympathy. But then, breaking the fourth wall — and easing our focus on this family for a moment — Janice pitches her science fair project directly to the audience.  When she finishes, she exits, accompanied by spontaneous and grateful applause from the audience. Asha-Ashanti Nzinga Turner is the actress who portrays Janice in a focused and uncluttered performance that elevates the production and results in the audience’s joyful response. Janice’s monologue amounts to a standalone, 11 o’clock number in a painful melodrama. Turner and director Caro Dubberly both understood the assignment and delivered on it in a satisfying way. Do they make plays like this anymore? Ever since its Broadway premiere in 1978, I have wanted to see this play, because of its evocative title alone. I am glad I finally got to see it.  Asha-Ashanti Nzinga Turner (Janice), Irene Denniston (Ruth), Elizabeth Keith (Beatrice), Daphne Wheeler (Tillie), and Jeanne M. Adams (Nanny) in ‘The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.’ Photo by Hart Wood. The plot concerns the dysfunctional and distressed nature of a family matriarch, Beatrice (Elizabeth Keith), whose ability to engage with life was crushed early on. We watch her as she passes on to her two daughters the damage that she has incurred. Beatrice confines herself to their home and guards against any intrusion that might result from her two daughters’ necessary engagement with school. Her occasional telephone conversations with her daughters’ teachers are very abusive. One of her daughters, Ruth (Irene Denniston), responds to her mother’s parental style by alternating between having convulsions, collaborating with her mother in the torture of her sister, and showing her rebelliousness by dressing to attract the attention of boys. Tillie, the other daughter, is submissive to her sister and her mother as well as to her teachers and schoolmates.  The script has the dogged earnestness and a singular rootedness in being American that pervades some of the more memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone or Star Trek. While the script does not preach, the way these people are with each other inclines one to think that surely this is not the way life has to be. Surely, something has to change. The casual, everyday cruelty in which the central family operates — and which affects their interactions with people outside of the family circle — can be triggering. TOP LEFT: Asha-Ashanti Nzinga Turner (Janice); TOP RIGHT: Elizabeth Keith (Beatrice) and Jeanne M. Adams (Nanny); ABOVE: Daphne Wheeler (Tillie), Elizabeth Keith (Beatrice), and Irene Denniston (Ruth), in ‘The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.’ Photos by Hart Wood. This play strikes me as being character- and word-focused. It could be produced on radio or in an intimate black box theater with only spotlights on the actors’ faces, and it would remain effective. The actors under Dubberly’s direction are occasionally able to tap into that inner drama. But some of the choices made for the set and staging work against the script and the actors’ strengths.  On the one hand, the set in this production leans into the realism/naturalism suggested by the script. But I wonder if “realism/naturalism” (whether onstage or on film) is the sort of illusion that only very big budgets can accomplish. Here, the sets tended to look more aspirational than realistic. On the other hand, director Dubberly’s additions of abstract movements during some scene transitions pushed against the realism that the sets were trying to establish. I experienced these choices as conflicting, and that conflict occasionally had the effect of pulling me out of the relationships the performance was working toward.  Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes, including one intermission. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds plays through May 24, 2026, at Silver Spring Stage, 10145 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD. Purchase tickets ($28; $25 for students and seniors) at the door, online, or by contacting the Box Office at [email protected] or 301-593-6036. The program is online here. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon MarigoldsWritten by Paul ZindelDirected by Caro Dubberly CASTDaphne Wheeler (Tillie), Irene Denniston (Ruth), Elizabeth Keith (Beatrice), Jeanne M. Adams (Nanny), Asha-Ashanti Nzinga Turner (Janice) ...read more read less