McCarter stages a generational grudge match

Playwright Sarah Treem is a becoming an old pro at creating tension between two characters in small cramped rooms, as seen weekly in In Treatment, the award-winning HBO series. In "The How and the Why" her taut dialogue pits two evolutionary biologists against each other, and a modern daughter against a traditional feminist mother.

Rachel Hardeman is a grad student at NYU, adopted by elderly parents who have both died. Rachel, played by Bess Rous, is angry, vulnerable, and possibly brilliant. Two weeks ago she went looking for her biological mother, Zelda Kahn, only to find she is also an evolutionary biologist at another prominent Ivy League university.

When brash Rachel enters Zelda's large office, with all the bookshelves, sheepskins and honors of the successful academic, the older woman is absorbed in her work. As Rous burns, Mercedes Ruehl as Zelda eventually looks up from her work to notice the daughter she abandoned as a six day old infant.

As the two spar, Rachel mostly jabbing, we learn that each woman is responsible for a groundbreaking theory (both borrowed from real life researchers: the 'Grandmother Hypothesis' and 'Menstruation As Defense,' otherwise known as the toxicity of sperm). The younger Rachel is working to get her theory heard at her mother's prestigious conference. And Zelda's early work on her own theory -- that women live long past menopause because interacting with their grandchildren keeps them young longer -- drove her to abandon her own daughter, let alone any hope of ever meeting her grandchildren.

Rachel never lets her forget this abandonment, while Ruehl plays a strong mother bear, allowing the cub to slap her around but never giving up her dominant role. (Ruehl actually has to wear shoes with large wedges to allow her to stand taller than the statuesque Rous.)

For women, the play is especially captivating, asking whether you have to give up motherhood in order to rise to the top of your field. Director Emily Mann somehow extracts a bond between mother and daughter; even if they're not exactly getting along, there is certainly enough commonality for them to be absolutely drawn to each other.

Ruehl, the veteran who has already given us gorgeous Broadway and film performances in "Lost in Yonkers,"  easily nails this role. Rous, with her over-sensitive face and stage presence, promises us many more performances to look forward to. This Mason Gross grad is an actor to watch. The carefully detailed sets are realistic, grounding the actors in a university fishbowl.

Early in the play Rachel asks her mother about a quote she has on her wall, by the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

"My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!"

It might not be the answer Rachel wants from her mother, but for now it will have to do. Maybe Rachel's generation will have a better answer. For now, the McCarter has a very pleasing play.

"The How and The Why"
World premiere through Feb. 13 at McCarter Theatre Center
91 University Place, Princeton
(609) 258-ARTS (258-2787)
7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
3 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays