Have You Met Jane Goodall and her Mother?
Who knew that a biographical play could be so witty, entertaining and charming? The latest EST/Sloan Project science play, Michael Walek’s "Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother?" is one of the most enjoyable and enlightening comedies of the season. Using the actual facts of Goodall’s first trip to Tanganyika’s Gombe Stream Reserve in 1960 to observe chimpanzees in the wild, Walek creates a play that sticks close to the well documented facts but fills in the missing information with often amusing supposition. The title refers to the fact that the Tanganyika government (then ruled by the British) only allowed Jane to study in their game park as a woman alone if she had a chaperone – so she brought along her mother. Jane Goodall’s trip was arranging by famed palaeoanthropologist Louis Leakey for her to find the missing link between humans and chimps which she finally does just before the end of her four month first trip. [more]
