Science on stage: why would a chemist wish to write plays?

REGINA I said "sterile" crap ... consisting of rules promoted by art-hating boors, shielded from any sense of beauty by a dense fog spread from ear to ear. You disembowel every vestige of aesthetics ... you ignore style, form, patina ... in fact all connotative accompaniments. Transforming the wine of aesthetics into vinegar! How typical of you chemists. When chemists dabble with art, the best that can be said is the results are unpredictable.

REX Unpredictability is what science is all about ...

REGINA Is it really?

REX I wanted to explain how we arrived at our conclusion (Waves pages) ...

REGINA You think I need an explanation?

REX (Sarcastic) Oh pardon me! I forgot. You have no use for trace metal analysis, but you're an expert in thermoluminescence ... and scanning electron microscopy. In their scope and limitations ...

REGINA Their limitations! Exactly.

REX You're impossible! Here ... (Slams report on her desk). Read it.

Chemists appear only infrequently as characters in plays. But Stephen Poliakoff's Blinded by the Sun, (5) dealing with the cold fusion debacle, or the Canadian Vern Thyssen's, Einstein's Gift, focusing oil the Nobel laureate Fritz Haber, are first-class examples that this lode merits mining. Not only do such plays offer new insights to a non-scientific audience, but they may even tempt chemists to occasionally leave the laboratory for the theatre.

References

(1.) C. Djerassi, Menachem's Seed, Penguin Books, New York, 1998.

(2.) C. Djerassi, An Immaculate Misconception, Imperial College Press/ World Scientific Publ., London, 2000.

(3.) C. Djerassi and R. Hoffmann, Oxygen, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2001.

(4.) C. Djerassi and D. Pinner, Newton's Darkness: Two dramatic views, Imperial College Press/ World Scientific Publ., London, 2003.

(5.) C. Djerassi, Phallacy (www.djerassi.com/ phallacy/phallacyfull.html) published in Gerlnan translation as Phallstricke, Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck, 2005.

(6.) S. Poliakoff, Blinded by the Sun, Methuen, London, 1996

(7.) V. Thyssen, Einstein's Gift, Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2003.

Carl Djerassi, professor emeritus of chemistry at Stanford University, is one of the few American scientists to have received both the National Medal of Science (in 1973 for the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive) as well as the National Medal of Technology (1991). He is also the author of a collection of short stories, a poetry chapbook, an autobiography, and a memoir, as well as five novels and eight plays. His recent plays, Three on a Couch and Taboos will have their North American premieres in New York City's Soho Playhouse in May and September 2008, respectively.