A new play at TimeLine Theatre's freshly built Uptown home is putting a spotlight on a part of birth control history that rarely makes the textbooks: the Puerto Rican women who underwent the pill's first large-scale clinical tests in 1956. “The Birth of the Pill,” which opened Sept. 10, is the world premiere production inside the company's new building at 5035 N. Broadway, and it reimagines the well-documented story of the pill's invention through a character largely left out of the historical record.
The play is adapted from journalist Jonathan Eig's 2015 nonfiction book of the same name, and its world premiere at TimeLine's new Uptown building was noted by the Chicago Sun-Times. Eig, who lives in Lakeview, subtitled his book “How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution,” though he has said the number four in that subtitle is somewhat arbitrary. He identified Margaret Sanger, Gregory Pincus, Katharine Dexter McCormick and John Rock as the four figures he considered indispensable to the pill's creation, according to Block Club Chicago.
Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, McCormick an activist philanthropist who helped bankroll the research, Pincus a biologist who pioneered the use of progesterone for birth control, and Rock a gynecologist who helped bring the pill to clinical use — all figures whose work spanned the 1930s through the 1960s, per the same Block Club Chicago report. Playwright Jessica Huang's adaptation, directed by Sandra Marquez, keeps those historical figures on stage but adds a fifth central character not drawn directly from any single person in Eig's book.
A Character Built to Fill a Gap in the Record
That character, Ramona Delgado, is an amalgam invented by Huang to represent the women who underwent the pill's first large-scale clinical tests in Puerto Rico starting in 1956, according to Block Club Chicago's reporting. The play makes Delgado, played by María Victoria Martínez, the narrator of her story. Eig's book itself does not focus on the women experimented on in Puerto Rico, per Block Club Chicago, which is precisely the gap Huang's creative choice was designed to address.
Onstage, Delgado goes further than simply narrating: she confronts Jonathan Eig as a character within the play itself, Block Club Chicago reports. Eig reportedly supports that creative decision and participated in some of the production's rehearsal process. Mitchell J. Fain plays both Gregory Pincus and Eig, appearing as the author in the play's final scene, a doubling the Sun-Times noted when describing how Fain “appears” as Eig late in the show.
The rest of the cast, per BroadwayWorld's listing, includes Janet Ulrich Brooks as Margaret Sanger, Rammel Chan as Min Chueh Chang and Mary Beth Fisher as Katharine McCormick. The listing identifies the production by its title and date range rather than providing the descriptive language quoted here.
High Doses and Questions of Consent
The Puerto Rico trials depicted in the play took place largely in low-income neighborhoods like Río Piedras, according to the Tribune's review. The Sun-Times independently reports that many participants lacked informed consent.
The Sun-Times review was more specific about the physical toll, reporting that many participants “experienced problematic and even severe side effects” and that “the dosage was much higher than it should have been” — details consistent with Block Club Chicago's characterization that the initial pill doses caused significant side effects in the women tested in Puerto Rico. The accounts describe dozens of Puerto Rican women.
Critics Split on Execution
The Sun-Times reviewed the production. The Sun-Times characterized the show as functioning more like commentary than storytelling, writing that it “comes across as a piece still early in development and in need of a fresh conceptual start.” Block Club Chicago reports that the show runs 90 minutes without intermission.
The Tribune's listing places TimeLine Theatre at its new 5035 N. Broadway address. BroadwayWorld's listing shows the run extending from Sept. 2 through Oct. 4, but Block Club Chicago reports that performances were extended through Oct. 11.
Marking a New Chapter for TimeLine
The production opens TimeLine Theatre's 30th Anniversary inaugural season at its new Uptown home, according to BroadwayWorld, marking the company's first full season in a permanent building of its own after decades operating elsewhere. TimeLine's stated mission centers on presenting stories inspired by history that connect with today's social and political issues, per Block Club Chicago, and the choice to open its new chapter with a play about reproductive health history fits squarely within that focus.
Beyond the stage, the new building reportedly offers exhibits about the history of birth control and the figures depicted in the play, including Sanger and McCormick, according to Block Club Chicago. Attendees are also invited to write their own comments about personal experiences with the pill as part of the exhibit space, extending the production's themes into the lobby well after the final scene ends.
