Lab's Labour's Lost

COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS

THEATRE Lab’s labour’s lost Philip Ball appraises Nicole Kidman’s stage turn as crystallographer Rosalind Franklin.

he 1953 discovery of DNA’s structure Photograph 51 tale ever since the by James Watson and Francis Crick is ANNA ZIEGLER feminist reading a triumphant narrative with an uneasy Until 21 November 2015. of Anne Sayre’s Tsubtext. Rosalind Franklin’s crystallographic Noël Coward Theatre, Rosalind Franklin London. JOHAN PERSSON work was a vital part of the evidence. Yet, and DNA (Nor- although her results (and those of Maurice ton, 1975) — an Wilkins) were published in the same issue interpretation that Franklin would have of Nature as theirs, Franklin was denied disavowed, her sister has said. Had Franklin adequate credit for years (see Nature 496, 270; been less excluded and patronized by her 2013). Watson and Crick never fully acknowl- male peers, might she have had the feedback edged the debt while she lived, and when she and confidence to solve the structure first? died at 37 of ovarian cancer, she effectively In her authoritative The Dark Lady of DNA spared the Nobel committee the impossible (HarperCollins, 2002), Brenda Maddox chal- decision of which trio to reward with the 1962 lenges that idea, suggesting that Franklin’s prize in medicine or physiology. class and religion (she came from a wealthy The question you need to ask yourself Jewish family) had an equal role in her isola- before seeing Photograph 51, Anna Ziegler’s tion at King’s. Ziegler finds a good accom- play about Franklin and the race to pin down modation: without any of the male characters the double helix, is how you like your science- becoming chauvinistic caricatures, we are left in-theatre. Do you insist on adherence to the in no doubt that science was not welcoming historical record, or do you accept that the to women in the 1950s. aim is to illuminate and interrogate themes? Nicole Kidman as Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51. More contentious in both history and the There is plenty here to upset the stickler — play is how to think about Franklin’s science. not least, the status of the titular X-ray diffrac- a big part in launching her as a feminist icon. Her experimental acumen is made clear; Kid- tion pattern of DNA, obtained by Franklin And Ziegler’s play (which premiered in Los man spends a lot of time at the lab bench. But and PhD student Raymond Gosling at King’s Angeles, California, in 2009) offers a more what might have held Franklin back was that College London and used as evidence for nuanced view of the myth. she did not trust model-building, believing Watson and Crick’s double-helical model. Ziegler’s players carry the story well. Wat- that the structure must be revealed through Many of Ziegler’s liberties (such as bringing son (Will Attenborough) and Crick (Edward mathematical analysis. Along with photo Franklin’s illness forward, and implying that Bennett), naturally; the diffident Wilkins graph 51, Watson and Crick assimilated other Wilkins was infatuated with her) serve the (Stephen Campbell Moore); Gosling (Joshua data, notably biochemist Erwin Chargaff’s narrative without compromising the core Silver) doing the PhD student’s job of fill- observation that in DNA, the amounts of issues. But casting photograph 51 as a eureka ing in gaps and making the tea, figuratively adenine and thymine bases, and of cytosine moment is awkward. and literally. US structural biologist Donald and guanine, are equal. Perhaps more impor- Franklin did not fully interpret the image, Caspar (Patrick Kennedy) almost draws the tantly, Watson, Crick and Pauling felt confi- for one thing. Nor did she take it (Gosling work-obsessed Franklin into her first — and dent enough to foul up. All three committed did), although that would not have been only — relationship. Linus Pauling, Max howlers in trying to get the prize — Pauling’s possible without her expertise. As Matthew Perutz and Lawrence Bragg stay offstage. So triple helix, published in early 1953, contained Cobb writes in his excellent Life’s Greatest does a fair bit of the science: we never see the elementary errors. Ziegler’s Franklin would Secret (Profile, 2015), the image’s significance double helix, and the audience is left to make have been mortified by such blunders. has often been overstated, largely because what it will of phosphates being on the inside That, perhaps, is the most valid message Watson chose to play it up (“The instant I saw or the outside of the structure. That is no fault of Photograph 51. For science to thrive, there the picture my mouth fell open”) in his 1968 in itself — we are spared blackboard primers. must be the freedom to fail. In Franklin’s The Double Helix (Athenaeum). But the metaphors about base-pairing (as time, it is not surprising that a female scien- In Watson’s book there was also a hint, Caspar takes Franklin’s hand) or sexualized tist would think that she could ill afford that made much of in later accounts, of some- nestling of the twin strands are clunky. luxury. I am not at all sure that even a young thing underhand in how Wilkins — Gosling’s The play belongs to Franklin. But she Watson and Crick today could so freely take supervisor — showed Watson the photo in is written as so buttoned-up, prickly and the risks they did. And shamefully, with evi- early 1953. That was not true, although focused that it is easier to warm to the urbane dence of gender imbalances in peer review certainly Wilkins had clashed terribly with Crick or even the impetuous Watson. And and tenure, harassment and discrimination Franklin. Should Ziegler have used Watson’s casting a big star brings its own compli- in the laboratory, and casual gender stereo- first-hand but unreliable narrative at face cations. Nicole Kidman’s performance is typing still deemed acceptable by some lead- value to inform the plot? One might argue restrained, but the glamour that attends her is ing scientists, the stakes remain still higher that if Watson could decorate the truth for the opposite of what the part demands. More for a latter-day Franklin. ■ the sake of a good story, why shouldn’t she? surface ordinariness would have left room for By adopting a dismissive tone towards a glimpse of depths. Philip Ball is a writer based in London. Franklin, Watson’s book inadvertently played Misogyny has loomed large in Franklin’s e-mail: [email protected]