Photograph 51

Anna Ziegler

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783199365
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Amerikanische Dramaturgie

'The instant I saw the photograph my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race' Does Rosalind Franklin know how precious her photograph is? In the race to unlock the secret of life it could be the one to hold the key. With rival scientists looking everywhere for the answer, who will be first to see it and more importantly, understand it? Anna Ziegler's extraordinary play looks at the woman who cracked DNA and asks what is sacrificed in the pursuit of science, love and a place in history. Nicole Kidman made her much anticipated return to the London stage in the role of Rosalind Franklin, the woman who discovered the secret to Life, in the UK première of Anna Ziegler's award-winning play.

(The Lights rise on ROSALIND.)

ROSALIND: This is what it was like. We made the invisible visible. We could see atoms, not only see them—manipulate them, move them around. We were so powerful. Our instruments felt like extensions of our own bodies. We could see everything, really see it—except, sometimes, what was right in front of us.

When I was a child I used to draw shapes. Shapes overlapping, like endless Venn diagrams. My parents said, “Rosalind, maybe you should draw people? Don’t you want to draw our family? Our little dog?” I didn’t. I drew patterns of the tiniest repeating structures. In my mind were patterns of the tiniest repeating structures.

WILKINS: It was a particularly cold winter in London. January 1951.

ROSALIND: And when I first got to use my father’s camera, I went outside and found four leaves. I arranged them carefully, on the curb. But the photograph I took was not of leaves. You see, nothing is ever just one thing. This was the world, a map of rivers and mountain ranges in endless repetition. And when I told my father I wanted to become a scientist, he said, “Ah. I see.”…Then he said “No.”

WILKINS: And at the same time, in Paris—

WATSON: Not again, Wilkins. Really?

WILKINS: In Paris, Rosalind Franklin was saying her goodbyes.

ROSALIND: (As though addressing a large group of people—her colleagues in Paris; her French is perfect.)

Oh, vous me flattez plus que je ne mérite.

(She laughs.)

But I do appreciate it. I will so miss you all, and the work we’ve done here together. Never have I encountered such fastidiousness coupled with such, yes I’ll say it, joy. I will miss it. And the bread…And the wine…And oh the cheese! But mostly I will miss you.

(She smiles, a twinkle in her eye, but then, after a moment, puts her hair in a bun.)

CRICK: (To the audience.) She didn’t want to leave the Laboratoire Central, but she’d just won a fellowship at King’s College London and one didn’t turn down a job at King’s—especially since there was a chance she’d get to work in the field of genetics—

CASPAR: A field in which the possibilities were…well, they were endless. In which the promise of personal and professional fulfillment was tangible.

GOSLING: So she wrote a…polite letter to Dr. Wilkins requesting the instruments she’d require:

ROSALIND: (Writing the letter, all formality.) I require an X-ray generating tube. And a camera specially made so that the temperature inside it can be carefully controlled. Otherwise, the solution will change during its exposure, and Dr. Wilkins you know as well as I do that that just won’t do. Finally, if at all possible, I’d like to know when this order will be placed so that, if need be, I can request a few minor modifications. Yours sincerely, Dr. Rosalind Franklin.

WILKINS: Dear Miss Franklin, you are ever so…cordial. But I must warn you—we at King’s are very serious. So serious, in fact, and intent on being at “the cutting edge” as they say, that we will be moving your research into another area entirely.

(WILKINS and ROSALIND at King’s together.)

ROSALIND: I beg your pardon?

WILKINS: Yes, instead of proteins you will be working on deciphering the structure of DNA.

ROSALIND: Is that so.

WILKINS: You see, I recently took X-ray photos of a particular sample of DNA that came out remarkably well, showing that it is unmistakably crystalline in shape. Therefore it now seems evident that King’s needs to push forward in this endeavor, in determining, through crystallography, at which you are quite expert—

ROSALIND: Thank you. I am.

WILKINS: Yes. No one will argue with that. (Beat.) At any rate, we need to push forward in determining why it is that in the chromosome the numbers of purines and pyrimidines come in pairs. So that we can then determine how replication works. So that we can then determine—

ROSALIND: I know what you’re talking about.

WILKINS: Yes, yes I suppose you do. Then I’ll leap straight to the point. You will be assisting me in my study of the Signer DNA from Switzerland. Everyone wanted it and yet somehow Randall got it. The old rogue. I don’t know how he did it…

ROSALIND: I don’t think I heard you correctly.

WILKINS: You did! We have the Signer stock. Quite a coup really. When you think about it.

ROSALIND: But did you say I’d be assisting you?

WILKINS: Yes!…And my doctoral student, Ray Gosling, will assist you.

GOSLING: Hello!

(He puts out his hand and ROSALIND ignores it.)

ROSALIND: But…Randall told me I’d be heading up the study. That I’d be in charge of my own work here. Sure...