Nov

8

How many plays can you recall, offhand, that have at their center the subject of science? Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen” is one, Stoppard’s “Arcadia” is another, and, um…

Exactly.

Anna Ziegler has taken advantage of the sensible idea that science is exciting, dramatic, and largely (alas) unknown in its atomistic dailiness and canine-cyclical rivalries. The Ensemble Studio Theatre offers monetary prizes for “compelling and credible” dramas involving science and technology, and if “Photograph 51” is any indication, they have a strikingly winning formula.

It is London, 1953, and separate teams of scientists are madly, often secretly, researching the “secret of life,” the strands of being we easily toss about as DNA and RNA. At the time, a British Jewish female scientist, Rosalind Franklin (amazingly convincing Kristen Bush) in concert with her by-our-standards primitive cameras, microscopes and developmental instruments and her self-possession, works doggedly and without assistance from her male cohorts to perfect an image of the helical pattern that reveals the building structure of life. Researcher Franklin used x-ray diffraction photography to minutely examine what people then called ‘the secret of life.’

Franklin’s work is of course derided and laughed at by her lab colleagues, some of whom cannot fathom that they admire her while envying her ferocious dedication. Her materials, especially her exacting crystallographic imagery, are secretly studied and handed around, as she persists with her driven examination of everything she theorizes and tries to resolve. A team of snarky researchers in a Cambridge lab removed from Franklin’s make errors and misjudgments galore, but recognize the Eureka moment weeks earlier than does Rosalind, and hasten to create the model that has made their names synonymous with the double helix. Watson & Crick, anyone?

What, however, kept Dr. Rosalind Franklin from the scientific halls of fame and glory that rightly belonged to her?

A play about the cruelties of being a female in the male-dominated world of science (which female scientist is ever married? Which ever had a child?), about the cut-throat worlds of science and succeeding. And the cost of not realizing that no matter what industry you squirrel or feint into, competition is the substrate name of the game.

The acting is uniformly superb, with a cast of (to me) unknowns. The set design, lighting, scene changes and especially the direction are first-rate. Even the diction for the majoritarian Brits, and the several American lab assistants and newly minted doctors, are pitch-perfect. Only one nitpick: One of the fellows, the American Crick, mispronounces data, as most people usually do, even today. It seems unacceptable for a scientist to do so, however. His coarseness in many matters linguistic and cultural, however, was of a piece, and contributed to the overall texture and viability of this remarkable piece of writing, which requires intense familiarity with the science of biology and genetics as well as dramaturgic niceties.

The packed SRO audience was held rapt from start to finish.

OK, so it’s science—does that mean it is dusty sere and stat-filled? Not the least. There is profound drama and emotion, taut expectation and riveting suspense. Of the past 5 or 6 dramas experienced in the past fortnight, this is far and away the very best. In fact I think it the best show I have seen this year—on or Off Broadway. Though it is a bit of a shlep to get to, the price is gentler than most shows today, and the recompense in enjoyment and full-throated literate comic, tragic and all the in-between elements are there for the inhaling.

Twist this helix as you might: A superb piece of science; a superb piece of theatre.

At the Ensemble Studio Theatre – 549 West 52nd Street, NYC Until 27 November

(For more info on this fascinating stuff: Try The New Yorker article “Photo Finish” or the PBS documentary “Secret of Photo 51?)


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