American playwright Anna Ziegler PHOTOGRAPH 51 takes us a long way inside of leading scientists working at the King’s College London in the 1950’s.
It is 1951 and the race is on to unlock the secret of life. An ambitious young British chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, holds the key to decoding DNA and has a Noble Prize winning discovery within her reach.
Franklin’s pioneering work using x-ray diffraction photography is set to lead to the biggest breakthrough in biological history. Will Franklin’s work at King’s College, London be the one to make the breakthrough or will it fall to one of her rival scientists?!
PHOTOGRAPH 51 is the current play at Kirribilli’s Ensemble Theatre. Anna Ledwich directs a very fine production featuring a cast of six who each give strong performances.
Garth Holcombe plays Maurice Wilkins, a British physicist at King’s College, London, where he is highly lauded. He brings Rosalind to King’s College to assist him. Rosalind was under the impression that she is going to be doing her own research. There is a constant power struggle between them.
Gareth Yuen is her research assistant Ray Gosling, a graduate student at KIng’s College assigned to assist Franklin in her research. He is the man who eventually helps her to capture and develop Photograph 51. Yuen is earnest, helpful and eager to please. Gosling is intelligent, warm and focused on the importance of the work.
Toby Blume played James Watson, a confident brash American scientist working as a researcher at Cambridge University. Watson’s dreams of renown and fame- and his intense desire to prove himself to the world, spur him on to build model after model as he runs the race to discover the structure of DNA. Watson is disparaging to Rosalind during the play with his chauvinistic attitude towards her as well as his anti-semitic comments.
Jake Speer is an American scientist Caspar who becomes fascinated by Franklin’s work. It starts as written correspondence but then he travels to King’s College to assist and study with her. They share the bond of both being Jewish, in a college which has so few Jewish people. Whereas the other scientists are put off by Franklin’s intelligence and independent spirit.The two strike up a friendship which becomes quite close till Franklin’s illness.
Robert Jago plays Francis Crick, James Watson’s research partner at Cambridge University. The two are very different personality types. Whereas Watson is motivated by ambition and fame, Crick is more proper and reserved. He dreams of success, not for fame, but for professional satisfaction. Crick is forced to see how his association with Watson has derailed his own dreams of making a small difference and living a quiet, respectable life.
These were all good performances but the best performance of the night was by the exceptional Amber McMahon in the role that the play was built around. I have seen McMahon’s career continue to blossom and grow from the mid 1990’s when she was chosen as quite possibly the youngest member of the Sydney Theatre Company’s Resident Actor’s Company which then Artistic Director Robyn Nevin set up.
As per the Ensemble Theatre’s Artistic Mark Kilmurry program note, “Sometimes you come across amazing stories of amazing people and hope that their story can be told. Anna Zigler has done just that with her beautiful and clever play. PHOTOGRAPH 51, mapping out the incredible journey of scientist Rosalind Franklin in an arresting theatrical storytelling style.”
Arresting, it certainly is. We learn about a woman totally devoted to her profession. We see how genius works as Franklin gets into her zone and doesn’t want to be disturbed by anyone. We see how she fights against the boy’s club that the science department of King’s College had become. Women were considered second class citizens. And as a Jewish scientist she had to push against the anti-semitism that was so prevalent at the time.
Franklin’s stoicism comes across clearly when says, “I think that there comes a time in one’s life when you realise that you can’t begin again. That you have made the decisions that you have made and then you live with it or you spend the rest of your life in regret.”
Anna Ledwich’s direction is assured and taut. Lediwich’s creative team are excellent; Emma Vine’s set and costume design, Trudy Dalgleish’s lighting and Jessica Dunn’s music and sound design.
You know when theatre really hits the spot when you leave the theatre and you just want to find out more about the person whom the play is about.
There’s no shortage of material online about Rosalind Franklin. All you have to do is look up her Wikipedia page to see how much posthumous recognition she has received.
Anna Ziegler’s PHOTOGRAPH 51 is playing the Ensemble Theatre, 78 McDougall Street, Kirribilli until October 8 2022.
Featured image : Amber McMahon and Garth Holcombe in Photograph 51 at the Ensemble Theatre. Pic Teniola Komolafa
Production photography Teniola Komolafe
