Category: History of Science

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Science on Stage 2013: A Year in Review

The year 2013 has been a good one for the science-in-theatre genre with numerous performances of established classics staged throughout the world as well as new plays appearing on the scene.

The year began with the final few performances of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect at The National Theatre in London. The complexities of love amid a neuropharmacology clinical trial attracted both sell-out audiences and a clutch of awards and nominations for the Headlong/NT team.

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s new version of Brecht’s A Life of Galileo in the Swan Theatre brought audiences to Stratford-Upon-Avon to enjoy a lively and musical production with set-design by Tom Scutt.

Several new plays portraying the history of science opened throughout the year. Operation Epsilon by Alan Brody premiered in Boston USA, dealing with the post-war detention of German nuclear scientists and offering an intriguing postscript to Michael Frayn’s mighty Copenhagen. STELLA, a new play by Sibohan Nicholas featuring portrayals of 18th Century astronomers Caroline and William Herschel, opened in Brighton in May and went on to tour small venues in the UK and Ireland throughout the summer.

A highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August was Adura Onashile’s portrayal of Henrietta Lacks in her one-woman show HeLa. Onashile’s performance brought the story of Lacks treatment in the 1950s and the prolifically multiplying cell line that has lived on in the decades since her death to ever-wider audiences. The wartime code-breaking endeavors of Alan Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park were also brought to life at the Edinburgh Festival in Idle Motion’s immensely imaginative That is All You Need to Know.

As ever, Frayn’s Copenhagen and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia proved popular choices for professional and amateur theatre companies throughout the world. In Hong Kong there was a reading of Copenhagen in Mandarin in October and as well as a revival of a production given by Nobel laureates in Gothenburg in December. The appeal of Arcadia was confirmed this year when it was voted fourth in a list of the Britain’s favorite plays.

There are promising events in store for 2014 with the world premiere of Dava Sobel’s play about Copernicus And the Sun Stood Still set for production in Denver in April. With new tours of STELLA, Hanging Hooke and A Life of Galileo on the cards in the UK as well as a new play about neuroscience on the way from Constellations playwright Nick Payne, 2014 is looking bright for science-in-theatre.

 

 

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Life of Galileo to Tour in 2014

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent production of A Life of Galileo is returning to the stage in 2014.  Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Theatre Royal Bath are reviving the RSC production with Ian McDairmid remaining in the title role.  Opening in Birmingham on 28th February, the production will go on tour to Bath and Kingston during March.

Tour dates for A Life of Galileo:

Meanwhile, stage designer Tom Scutt has been talking about his work in two recent interviews here and here. Scutt, who also designed the set for Constellations, worked on A Life of Galileo for the RSC.

 

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Bletchley Park Gets the Theatrical Treatment in Edinburgh

Alan Turing and the Bletchley Park story get the theatrical treatment at the Edinburgh Fringe this year in Idle Motion‘s new play That is All You Need to Know. This piece of physical theatre uses brilliantly imaginative stagecraft to tell the stories of some of the people who tried to save the wartime code-breaking site from the brink of destruction. It also tells the tales of some of the people who worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and who weren’t allowed to talk openly about what they did for decades afterwards.

Music, movement, drama, stunningly simple visual effects and commanding performances combined to make this a captivating experience when StageScite caught That is All You Need to Know at the Greenwich Theatre in June.

That is All You Need to Know is at the Zoo Southside, Edinburgh at 17:05 on 2nd-24th August 2013 (not 11th and 18th).

The production will also be at the Oxford Playhouse on 5th September 2013.

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Stella: History is written in the stars

The three night run of Stella at the Greenwich Theatre begins on Thursday 11th July. The first night performance will be followed by a Q&A session with the play’s writer Siobhán Nicholas and astronomer Radmila Topalovic.

StageScite caught this new play about Caroline and William Herschel when it premiered at the Old Market Theatre in Brighton in May 2013.  Actors Chris Barnes and Kathryn Pogson joined Nicholas on stage to play the four roles, with Barnes doubling up to play the both the husband of present-day astronomer Jessica and William Herschel in the 18th Century. Nicholas herself took on the role of William’s sister Caroline who was his sometime assistant and an accomplished astronomer in her own right.

When musician Bill is offered a job with an orchestra in Germany, the chance to relocate raises a conflict with his wife Jessica whose own successful career as an astronomer is rooted in England. Jessica is also following her historical  interest in the Herschels, which takes her on a research trip to Bath to study Caroline Herschel’s private diaries. As Jessica’s investigations progress and her relationship with Bill becomes increasing strained, we are presented with interleaved scenes from the lives of the Herschels, whose own individual aspirations and careers are also pulling them in different directions.

Stella received special mention in the judging for the New Writing South Best New Play Award 2013. It runs at the Greenwich Theatre in London on 11th, 12th and 13th July 2013.

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London Tour Dates for Stella

Last month StageScite posted preliminary tour dates for the new science history play Stella, which features astronomers Caroline and William Herschel among its characters. Take the Space Theatre Company will also be be taking Stella to Maidenhead on 11 June and to the Greenwich Theatre in London between 11-13 July, details below.

Stella is in the running for the New Writing South Best New Play award at this year’s Brighton Fringe Festival, where it premieres on 29th May. Writing for the Old Market Theatre, playwright Siobhán Nicholas says that this is the first time Take the Space will open a new production in their home town.

Full Tour Dates for Stella

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Herschel Play to Premiere in May

Performance dates have been announced for the new play about astronomer Caroline Herschel. Stella, by Siobhán Nicholas will have its first performances at the Old Market Theatre in Brighton on 29 and 30 May 2013 as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. StageScite is also aware of touring performances in Kingston on 4th June, Scarborough on 21st June and Oxford on 27th and 28th June.

Described by Take the Space Theatre Company as a ‘story about women and astronomy’, Stella features Caroline and William Herschel in a drama set across two Photo Take the Space Theatrecenturies.

Future Performances of Stella

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Tribute to Richard Griffiths After Final Galileo Performance

Actor Ian McDiarmid paid tribute to the late Richard Griffiths after the final performance of A Life of Galileo on Saturday 30 March. McDiarmid, who played Galileo in the Royal Shakespeare Company production, told the audience of his great admiration for Richard Griffiths as an actor and colleague. He pointed out that Griffiths, who died on 28 March 2013 aged 65, also played Galileo in 1994 at the Almeida Theatre.

With the cast of A Life of Galileo assembled behind him for the final curtain call, McDairmid explained how Griffiths’ energetic portrayal of Galileo provided inspiration for some of his own performance. MacDiarmid closed the evening by inviting the audience to show their appreciation for Richard Griffiths with a period of applause.

The RSC production of A Life of Galileo by Bertold Brecht (using a new translation by Mark Ravenhill) played at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon from 31 January – 30 March 2013.

In this short RSC video featuring the director Roxana Silbert, Iain McDairmid says “it seems to me at the moment science is in the air.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItuI-uBxsfo?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

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German Nuclear Scientists Gather on Stage for Operation Epsilon

Heisenberg: It’s like a pre-war house party – one of those house parties in a play, that’s cut off from any contact with the outside world, where you know the guests have all been invited for some secret sinister purpose.

Copenhagen Act One, Michael Frayn, 1998

In July 1945 the Allied Forces imprisoned ten scientists associated with the German wartime nuclear programme in an English country house near Cambridge. For nearly six months the conversations between the captives were secretly recorded in an attempt to determine how close the Nazis came to developing a nuclear weapon.

The transcripts from Farm Hall were declassified in 1992, providing valuable source material for historians and writers intrigued by what happened there. The Farm Hall operation is depicted in Adam Ganz’s 2010 radio play Nuclear Reactions and provided important background material for Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen.

Operation Epsilon is a new stage play by Alan Brody depicting the internment at Farm Hall. It premiered at Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA, USA on 7th March 2013, produced by The Nora Theatre Company under the direction of Andy Sandberg. The company works with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop plays representing science in theatre.

The recordings made at Farm Hall were inconclusive about the true state of the Nazi nuclear programme. However, the reactions of the scientists to the news of the bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945 were enlightening, with Otto Hahn initially said to have considered suicide. Although the events at Farm Hall have been examined before, there seems to be sufficient dramatic material available to sustain new writing, making Brody’s new play an intriguing prospect.

Operation Epsilon runs at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA, USA until 28 April 2013.

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Performance of Dava Sobel’s Copernicus Play in US Virgin Islands

Dava Sobel’s 2011 book ‘A More Perfect Heaven’ about Nicolaus Copernicus includes a short play called ‘And the Sun Stood Still’. It imagines Copernicus’ meeting with Georg Rheticus in 1539 and the events that may have led Copernicus to publish his theory that Earth revolves around the the sun.

A_More_Perfect_HeavenSobel will be speaking about Copernicus this week at an event on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It will be followed by a performance of ‘And the Sun Stood Still’, given by members of the Pistarckle Theater Company.

Despite previous public readings of the play, this is the first full performance of ‘And the Sun Stood Still’ of which StageScite is aware. The performance will take place at 7pm on Thursday 21st Feburary in Prior-Jollek Hall on the U.S. Virgin island of St. Thomas.

The 19th Feburary 2013 was the 540th anniversary of Copernicus’ birth, as marked by a Google Doodle.