Rosalind Franklin’s Role in DNA Discovery, Once Ignored, Is Told Anew in Song

In the summer of 2020, composers and lyricists Madeleine Myers She spent hours at the piano in her Manhattan apartment and struggled to write three songs for her new musical.double helixof British chemist Rosalind Franklin. The challenge was not to tie the words strictly to the score, but to convey the science of the key moments in the discovery of DNA structure and make the songs interesting.

Franklin’s experiment, which successfully used X-ray crystallography to create an image of DNA, 1953 breakthrough discovery by James Watson and Francis Crick A double helix structure. This breakthrough builds on our modern understanding of genetics and biology, but for many years Franklin went unnoticed. (She died of cancer in 1958 when she was 37. Her male colleague later died.) won the nobel prize. )

Myers and the program director spoke on a recent afternoon. Scott Schwartzin its rehearsal room above 42nd Street, faced a new hurdle: how to present a science-focused piece containing a number worthy of being called “The Problem.” In this scene, six actors are in a lab trying to get an image of his DNA using his X-ray crystallography machine. As they shifted focus from the cardboard impromptu to the on-stage screen, Schwartz exclaimed: “We are suspending reality by allowing the picture to appear immediately on the projection screen.”

We’re just weeks away from the premiere of Double Helix at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, New York, starting May 30. A certain level of pretend play is essential in theater, but this illusion was particularly difficult to get right. Myers and Schwartz seek to balance history and science in an emotional and multifaceted portrait of Franklin, who challenged his work with enthusiasm despite misogyny and antisemitism.

Myers knew “this play shouldn’t be about science,” but he was committed to making science “the vehicle for this story.” After all, that was Franklin’s view of the world. He said, “It gave him dramatic freedom when it came to history, but he felt he couldn’t cheat science.”

But she also added that “the science needs to be simple, because what we’re trying to show is an emotional conflict,” and that it also needs “all power relations and gender relations.” rice field.

The production team also worked with several advisors, including: Sonya Hansona research scientist in Computational Biology Centerproviding feedback on the script and direction.

“They do a lot of work to really incorporate the lab environment into the set,” Hanson said. She explained that it was important. Because “Rosalind was a brilliant experimenter,” and any portrait of her life should reveal that.

Franklin (depicted on stage is Samantha Mussellwho played Hodel in the 2015 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof) was in the race to discover the structure of DNA, and she was the only science was a person Own version of story. “All these explanations for what happened are certainly filtered through the prejudices these people had,” Myers said. “And the only voice we don’t really hear is Rosalind’s.”

Myers began reading about the scientist in 2018 and felt an immediate affinity. “We are both women. We are both Jewish. We are both about the same age,” she said. But her greatest connection was “how she felt about her work as a scientist was how I felt about her work as a musical playwright.”

This isn’t the first time Myers has brought history to the stage. She was an original member of Hamilton’s music department and witnessed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s approach to producing “moving and moving” shows about historical figures, Myers said. explained. So when she started writing “Double Helix,” she wanted to make sure that “the emotional stakes are greater than the actual historical stakes.”

The central question is, “Can life be defined as biological matter, or is life what we live and experience?” Are we sacrificing what we live and experience to find the substance? To heighten the choices Franklin has to make in the musical, Myers turned what in real life might have been just a crush on scientist Jack Melling into a relationship. Franklin must then choose between relationships and work.

Schwartz, artistic director of the Bay Street Theater, said he was drawn to the project by its potential to fill a void in Franklin’s inner world. “That’s what musicals are for,” he said. Using songs “to reveal the psychology of characters.”

When it comes to Franklin’s scientific disdain, Myers isn’t asking his audience to be “comfortable.” Instead, she says, she wants people to think this way after they leave the theater. “What are the two things in my life that are competing for my time?” It’s about using your time.”