HEDY! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr (directed by Blake Walton and Leslie Kincaid Burby) is a sparkly, energetic one-woman show about the true story of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr that encourages the audience to ask the right questions. Incidentally, I have many. Most significantly: Why does this story need to be told now?

At several points during the show, the play describes the story as ‘important’ and returns to the idea that Hedy was overlooked as a scientist because she was a beautiful woman. While I do not doubt that this is the case, I would have liked more clarity on how this connected to the present day. The goal of the play seems to be to inform people that Hedy was not only a Hollywood star but also an inventor, which I can recognise as important. However, they ultimately fail to present this in a way that couldn’t be inferred by simply reading the front of the program (or even the show’s title). If the goal is, indeed, more broadly to highlight the role of women in science historically, my question is, why the already famous Hedy Lamarr? This was underscored during the Q&A at the end of the show when actress Heather Massie asked the audience who knew Hedy Lamarr as an actress and then who knew her as an inventor, and the number of hands in the air more or less remained the same.

As a narrator, Hedy doesn’t play an active role in influencing the story and, as such, essentially provides the audience with a summary of her life. Because of this, we jump between events with little to no explanation about her motivations. We don’t learn why she started inventing after becoming an actress; we don’t know why she gets married so frequently; we don’t know why she stops making public appearances. There is no emotional or practical overlap between her life as an inventor and her life as an actress. These would have been the most interesting things to learn about in a play about Hedy’s life, everything else could have been discovered through a simple Google search.

Hedy’s role as narrator naturally centres her as the filter for her historical context. In doing so, to connect the story to WWII, they oversimplify the war by describing it as being about ‘male pride’ standing in the way of progress. This runs the risk of brushing over Hitler’s policy of fascism, racial ‘purity’, and expansionism and the cultural atmosphere that allowed him to get into power (which the play does not touch on at all). There is also a strong implication made that if they had only used Hedy Lamarr’s wireless frequency, the bombs would never have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which seems unlikely and could at least be better explained.

One of HEDY! ‘s most distinctive features is the use of audience participation, which kept the audience engaged and alert. However, this participation does not play a narrative function and isn’t wholly justified. A great example of this was when Hedy asked an audience member to explain how a player piano works, which he did, only for Hedy to immediately re-explain it anyway. The play frequently asserts that we, as an audience, asked Hedy to tell her story, but this never happens. If there had been no audience participation, the show may have gotten away with this, but as there is, it comes across as strangely delusional.

The sound and lighting, provided by Dan Leary, mostly play a practical rather than dramatic function (likely due to the travelling nature of the show). The lighting switches between lighting the audience for participatory moments and lighting only the stage, and similarly, the sound is mostly sound effects such as phones ringing or the occasional song being played by a character.  The projections at the beginning of the play, provided by Jim and Charley Marlowe, consist of a slideshow of photographs and a video that opens the show. The opening video is very fun and summarises Hedy’s first marriage, but this is rendered unimportant as the story is retold during the play anyway. The set is simple but detailed enough to give us an impression of the time period.

The use of props is somewhat sporadic. I appreciate how she transitions from using a rotary phone to a mobile, effectively marking the passage of time in a way that ties directly to Hedy’s life (as she invented the wireless frequency that enables mobile phones to function). This choice allows us to visualise Hedy’s global impact. Massie also uses a cane to distinguish one of her characters, though not consistently, as she sometimes mimes its use. 

Heather Massie gives an ambitious, lively, and enthusiastic performance, not only playing the role of Hedy Lamarr but a broad and colourful cast of a reported thirty-six characters. The performance is fast-paced, and she switches between them with relative ease and sustained energy. However, some of the characters are very similar, and though within each scene she distinguishes them well enough, across the whole play, they start becoming repetitive. Many of the male characters are overly caricatured, which is especially problematic when it comes to Hedy’s romantic entanglements, as her love interests seem creepy and obnoxious. With that said, her Jimmy Stewart impression was certainly a crowd favourite. The effort to paint Hedy Lamarr as the hero of the piece meant she lacked the emotional depth and nuance that would make her a more relatable and inspirational character. Hedy’s accent at the beginning of the play is difficult to understand but becomes clearer as the play progresses. Ultimately, she does well in holding the audience’s attention but starts to let it go as the performance repeats itself. 

In conclusion, HEDY! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr offers a lively and ambitious portrayal of a woman whose story deserves recognition. However, while the play introduces us to Hedy Lamarr’s multifaceted legacy, it leaves us with more questions than answers, missing the opportunity to truly explore the woman at its centre.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

The very diverse crowd enter to see a large montage of clips and photographs of the writer and performer, Heather Massie, as Hedy Lamarr, in all her period costume glory, on a large screen at the back of the stage.

This fades and reveled beneath it is Ms. Massie as Hedy, cleverly setting the scene with a miscellaneous assortment of lines from the many films Hedy starred in.

All in the acting style of the time. The 1930s, 40s and 50s.

We are then taken to Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler’s childhood and are given an understanding of what shaped and influenced this young woman who went on to become an international film star and inventor.

Exposition is important to establish the scene and the character in any play, but I felt here, that at times it would have been entertaining and also fun for the actor to ‘act out’ some of the situations we were told about so it did not just become a list of dates and ‘this is what she did next.’

Aside from that, I was certainly entertained by the story line of this whirlwind of a woman whose life was like a movie.

Hedy’s beautiful face, which was a blessing and a curse to her, opened the door to an acting career in films in Europe and, I was delighted to hear, she worked with director Max Reinhardt playing Sybil in a Berlin production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives.

Hedy moved to Berlin and married the munitions heir Friedrich Mandi who enclosed her in a jewelled dolls house that Hedy, also fearful of the rising anti-Semitism, escaped from by drugging her maid and fleeing to England where she met Louis B. Mayer who offered her a Hollywood contract and changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how she became a star.

A rather reluctant star who was very aware that to be glamorous, she just had to stand still and look stupid. Difficult for her to do as Hedy certainly was not stupid.

Hedy surrounded herself with factual books and interesting people including the composer George Antheil and together they invented, and patented. in 1942, a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes known by the catchy title of a Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum.

The non-use of this by the American Navy in WW2 was a major disappointment for Hedy who was convinced that the use of that system would have stopped so much of the horrors of that war.

They were listed for us, but I was very sceptical.

Her inventions were recognised and applauded and are in use today.

Heather Massie has been playing this role for nine years and in nineteen countries, so we got a very polished performance that was never on automatic but was fresh and lively.

Her voice is a beautiful instrument and played all the Hollywood A listers of the time with panache and wonderful depth and clarity.

Ms. Massie addressed and used the audience with skill, but I found that going up among them to talk, dissipated the energy and lost focus as well as being inaudible.

A question and answer 15 minutes at the end was insightful at times but also very indulgent for some of those asking the questions which made it interminable.

A highly recommended show to see and applaud that gives us an insightful look at a fascinating woman and her time.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer