The How and the Why

The How and the Why is a play by Sarah Treem, a staff writer for HBO 's In Treatment. The play depicts two women biologists meeting for the first time, one near the end of her career and one who is just beginning. The older woman has earned fame for her work on the Grandmother hypothesis and the younger wants to present a radical new hypothesis to explain why human women menstruate, while most mammals do not. The play deals with the workings of science and its impact on the personal lives of women scientists.