PHOTOGRAPH 51-Across the Pond with Nicole Kidman

The London production of the play PHOTOGRAPH 51 is written by Amer poet/playwright Anna Ziegler.  The play centers around Dr. Rosalind Franklin (Nicole Kidman) the only female working in an a sexist, scientific field with the goal to unlock the mystery to life.  The play takes place in the early 1950's in a subterranean bomb shelter which is dark, dismal, depressing and whose purpose was to protect the Londeners during bomb attacks.  Ironically, the life saving caverns where scientists are spending the majority of their time sealed off from the very things that make life worth living.  Crick & Watson who developed the double helix model to represent DNA & so doing received the Nobel Prize,  built their discovery on subterfuge.  They appropriated the x-ray studies of DNA molecules from reports & photos of DNA molecules that were the life's work of Dr Franklin.  Franklin is portrayed as a relentless scientist not known for her collaborative efforts.  Kidman gives a brilliant performance as a woman whose life is cut short by cancer and whose life is rendered lonely and riddled with regrets.  The scene between Kidman & a "co-worker" from Yale, having dinner together over a white linen cloth covering the lab table is molded by desires expressed in a dialogue not spoken aloud is the eureka moment of what could have been.  So too with her British counterpart, if only one had conferred with the other for work or for pleasure…what might have been.  The intelligent writing, Shakespearean oeuvre set, and leading acting result in a stirring historic/scientific play.  We're enlightened by scientific discovery and the make-up for life: Doing, Needing and Not Always being Alone.  Anna Ziegler should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.