Credit Where Credit is Due

Photograph 51 – Court Theatre

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published a model for the DNA molecule that would eventually net them and a third collaborator a Nobel Prize. Largely unknown for several decades after that accomplishment is that a large piece of the research that their model built on was done by a British scientist named Rosalind Franklin and the painstaking x-ray photography work she had refined. Court Theatre’s new production of Photograph 51 is the dramatization of Franklin’s work.

Portraying the bad acts and attitudes of the past can be difficult from a dramatic perspective. Women in science in the 1950s experienced a lot of sexism. Women in science in the 2010s experience a lot of sexism. I don’t think anyone sitting the audience at the Court would disagree, so how do you portray something when there won’t really be any surprise? The play succeeds where it manages to color in the lived experience of the string of small indignities Franklin experiences. There is an exchange early on where a colleague continues to refer to her as ‘Miss Franklin’ even after she specifically asks to be called Doctor. She responds by calling him ‘Mr.,’ and without a hint of irony or self-awareness, he snottily demands he be addressed by his title. All Dr. Franklin can do in the moment is take a deep breath and get back to work.

Watson and Crick appear in the show, and in contrast to Franklin’s careful, precise methods, are presented as brash, even cavalier. They propose models to see if the data can support it later. Franklin wants all the data in place before even beginning to theorize. The show occasionally goes a bit too far in drawing the contrasts. Watson in particular is practically presented as a buffoon, and it stands out given that everyone else gets a fairly nuanced take. That said, given that the real Watson apparently recently doubled down again on his racist views of genetics and race, perhaps a more nuanced take would have felt like whitewashing.

The show raises the question of how different Franklin’s work and legacy would have been treated if she and/or the world had been different. Franklin is portrayed as perhaps too careful in not letting theory get ahead of the data to the point that it stalls her work while Watson and Crick race ahead, but that isn’t entirely her fault. At one point in the show, Watson and Crick propose an erroneous model for the DNA molecule, in part because they ignored her published work. However, after some appropriate professional humiliation, they remain at work. It’s hard to imagine that a scientist who can’t even get other scientists to address her by her title getting that kind of second chance.

Chaon Cross as Rosalind Franklin is the gravitational center of the show. I last saw her as Catherine in Court’s production of Proof, and she was as excellent in that role as she is here. It’s a fine line she has to walk. She has to be sympathetic without portraying herself as a saint and guarded in a way that, even though it’s understandable why, doesn’t distance her from the audience as well as her colleagues. She succeeds in walking that line, painting a portrait of a highly intelligent, highly frustrated woman who, while rarely displaying her interior emotions to her colleagues, certainly feels them beneath the surface.

The technical jargon bogs down the show a little at points, and it may be a little hard to follow if you aren’t at least passingly familiar with the history and science at play here. That said, one my favorite parts of the show was seeing science portrayed as work. Scientific advancements are the result of years, sometimes lifetimes of painstaking work. It’s not all clever analogies and instantaneous inspirations that flow as the natural result of being a genius. I enjoyed seeing both the work itself and the woman who did that work honored in this play.

This show may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The subject matter is a little dense, but on the strength of a compelling central performance and the fact that it is relatively unknown story worth telling, I think Photograph 51 is more than worth your time.

Highly Recommended

Presented January 17-February 17 by Court Theatre at 5535 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by calling 773-753-4472 or by visiting www.courttheatre.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.