MET’s Photograph 51 is a revealing portrait of one scientist’s trajectory

“Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams famously implored her husband, John, in 1776, as he represented Massachusetts at the Continental Congress. “Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.”

One lady not remembered enough: British chemist Rosalind Franklin. Earning a doctorate from Cambridge University in the 1940s (her father disapproved of her science studies), she went on to make significant insights into the structure of viruses and to pioneer the use of X-ray diffraction to analyze crystallized solids. It was her exacting work with X-ray images that was instrumental in the discovery of DNA’s structure. Yet three men — James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins — would ultimately receive the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the double-helix model of DNA.

We get a crystalline picture of how and why that happened in Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s smart production of Photograph 51, Anna Ziegler’s recent play about Franklin as an up-and-coming scientist in early 1950s England. At King’s College, a 30-something Franklin (Amy Attaway) arrives from working in France to head up a study on DNA. Or so she believes. Instead of being able to pursue her own project, however, she is to assist Wilkins (Robert Gibby Brand), who insists on addressing her as “Miss Franklin,” rather than the customary — and more respectful — “Dr. Franklin.”

And that’s just the start of their troubled relationship. The driven Franklin prefers to work alone, a trait at odds with the collegial community. But she isn’t aided, either, by the school’s men-only dining room, where researchers are free to fraternize and discuss ideas.

It’s those theories, bantered about with a frenzy in the play’s early dialogue, that could overwhelm the less science-inclined among us. Don’t let it, director Karen Paisley wisely advises in opening remarks. The show’s swift pace doesn’t afford the time, and we get the gist anyway as we’re carried along by the energy onstage.

The dynamic performances that Paisley elicits from a strong cast are what keep us engaged in this one-act play’s fact-based story. Paisley’s fluid direction gives the rapidly moving show an easy flow among its varying locations and times. And her set’s bare-minimum placement of prop islands provides a fine framework for the unfolding tale.

The male scientists just don’t know what to make of this smart, striving woman among them, who fittingly emerges from the shadows at the start of the show. In a riveting performance, Gibby Brand dominates — at times chauvinistic, meek, jealous, petulant and vulnerable, his Wilkins is this production’s driving force. But he has competition. As two scientists in a race to discover DNA’s structure, John Cleary (as James Watson) and Coleman Crenshaw (in the role of Francis Crick) bring power and immediacy to their characters’ maneuverings and ambitions. 

One who truly admires the research Franklin is doing, and who stands out for addressing her in the manner due her, is Don Caspar (Jordan Fox), an American doctoral student who corresponds with her and eventually travels to England to assist in her work. Fox is magnetic as a scientist who may hold more than just professional admiration. 

As this story’s complicated heroine, Attaway holds her own among this swirl of strong men, lending sensitivity and sympathy to Franklin’s hard edges — pieces of this brilliant woman’s personality that feed the sexism (and anti-Semitism; “Jews can be ornery,” one character says) surrounding her self-prescribed isolation. Franklin’s obsession with her work isn’t what they expect, or particularly desire, in a female colleague. This surfaces in the way they deride her appearance and her manner when she presents to an audience of her peers. A workaholic, Franklin isn’t inclined toward making friends. She’s here for the science. Yet we feel for Attaway’s Franklin, observing in her what she’s unable to see in herself or, quite yet, in her own research. But her expertise is clear, the X-ray camera an “extension of her eye.” 

Assigned to assist Franklin, and navigating the friction between her and Wilkins, is grad student Raymond Gosling, portrayed with humor and appropriate earnestness by R.H. Wilhoit. His adept performance affords comic relief and helps highlight the rivalry and intrigue at play. (Costumes by Shannon Regnier help place us in the middle of the last century.)

KC audiences are fortunate to get a glimpse of this Photograph, staged in London’s West End in 2015 and set to open on Broadway later this year (with Nicole Kidman in the role of Franklin in both productions). The piece is timely, a story not only about science and its protagonists but also about politics — the who’s-in and who’s-out in the struggle for influence, recognition and an individual’s rightful place. 

Photograph 51

Through February 4 at Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, 3614 Main, 816-569-3226, metkc.org

Categories: Theater