in conjuction with the APS Users Week 2008
presents
Staged Reading
Auditorium, APS Conference Center, Argonne National Laboratory
Sunday, May 4, 2008, at 3:30 p.m.
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A unique artistic record of the meeting between Picasso and Bernal was left behind on the wall in Bernal's flat. The mural was preserved, is now owned by the Wellcome Trust (UK), and was recently installed in the Wellcome Trust headquarters. Mural photo provided by Prof. Rex Palmer, Birkbeck College , London |
More on the play, playwright's statement, playwrights and director, production, location, and ordering tickets below.
This project is partly supported by the American Crystallographic Association, Bruker AXS Inc., Minarik Corporation, Princeton Instruments, Varian, Inc., the International Union of Crystallography, Janet Smith, and the following Collaborative Access Teams (CATs) of the Advanced Photon Source: the Center for Advanced Radiation Sources of the University of Chicago (CARS-CAT), the Industrial Macromolecular Crystallography Association (IMCA-CAT), and SGX Pharmaceuticals (SGX-CAT).
The Arts at Argonne program is partially supported by
the University of Chicago and
the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Scientists immersed in the heavy demands of their profession tend to forget how much their imagination, dedication, and drive resemble the efforts of artists in their daily struggles to create art. In addition, we tend to forget that while our specialized toil can affect people's lives, they do not usually understand what we do—a situation that troubles artists as well.
Bernal's Picasso addresses these key issues in the life of scientists and society at large by recreating a unique dialog between the sciences and the arts. The play is is based on the historical encounter between Picasso, the iconic artist of the twentieth century, and the charismatic crystallographer and peace activist J.D. Bernal. The meeting of these two giants is memorialized in a unique artistic record: a mural left behind by Picasso at Bernal's flat at Birkbeck College on November 12, 1950. The mural is the centerpiece of the play, serving as a pivot point for an inspiring conversation between these main characters.
Picasso and J. D. Bernal together? What did they talk about? Crystallography and art? Politics? The tribulations and romantic problems in their lives? Answers to these questions and others form the texture of the play. Through this dramatic structure, the play attempts to provide a forum for dialog and discussion of the connections and differences between the sciences and the arts, the origins of molecular biology, and related themes. Besides Picasso and Bernal, the scientists Rosalind Franklin, J.B.J. Fourier, and W.L. Bragg also contribute their views.
This play is certainly not the first to deal with scientific heroes or science-related themes. I would like to bring to the attention of the younger generations of crystallographers (and scientists at large) just a few landmarks of the genre of plays having to do directly or indirectly with science. In my student days in Spain, I was mesmerized by Life of Galileo (1939, 1947), the masterpiece by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht centered on the life and conflicts of Galileo. The social responsibility of the scientists in society resulting from the development of atomic energy was explored by the Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt in The Physicists (1962). More recently the intriguing brief play entitled Oxygen (2000) by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann addresses the issue of who really discovered oxygen: Lavoisier, Sheele, or Priestley. Finally, I would draw attention to the subtle and enormously successful play Copenhagen (1998, 2000) by Michael Frayn, which attempts to recreate what really happened in the historical meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg during World War II. A recent book entitled Science on Stage by Dr. Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, UK (Princeton University Press, 2006), discusses the trends in this unique area of science writing and reviews and comments on more than a hundred plays presenting scientific themes on stage. By staging this play, we invite the scientific community at Argonne, their families, relatives, and friends, and the community at large to participate in a unique dialog between the Sciences and the Arts.
Dr. Celerino Abad-Zapatero is a professional crystallographer devoted to applying the techniques of macromolecular crystallography in drug discovery for more than twenty years at Abbott Laboratories. A native of Spain, he came to the United States on a Fullbright scholarship in 1972. He obtained his Ph.D. in macromolecular crystallography at the university of Texas at Austin and continued his postdoctoral research with M.G. Rossmann at Purdue University, culminating in the structure solution of one of the first icosahedral plant viruses. He is currently an adjunct professor at the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Cele is not only a well-known crystallograher, however; he is also (in the words of Wayne Hendrickson of Columbia University) “a romantic and a visionary,” whose keen observations and fabulous cultural repertoire give him a unique insight into the interplay between science and society and a keen understanding of how to bring science to the layperson. His interest in communicating the excitement and beauty of crystallography and science to fellow scientists and the lay public has resulted in published essays and a book entitled Crystals and Life: A Personal Journey (International University Line, 2002). This is his second play related to scientific themes. This play is dedicated to the memory of his parents, Juan Abad and Amparo Zapatero, his parents-in-law, Juan Manterola and Victoria Matute, and especially to Victoria Manterola and their two children, Inés and Pablo.
Jill Campbell's plays have been performed in Alaska, Chicago, Dublin, London, New Jersey, and New York. She lived in London from 2000 to 2003, where she studied with her mentor, playwright Bernard Kops. She was a member of Caird Company, which was founded by director John Caird (Les Miserables, Broadway) to assist emerging writers, and where she collaborated with directors Joyce Branagh and Stephen Wrentmore of the National Theatre. Her play Forgive Me Father was produced in London and was later invited to and produced at the Dublin Fringe Festival. Her play The Couple in the Kitchen was named a semifinalist in The Last Frontier Theatre Conference hosted by Edward Albee. The Couple in the Kitchen has also been staged by the Women's Theatre Alliance in Chicago, Luna Stage in Montclair, New Jersey, at Caird Company in London, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse in East Hampton, NY. Jill was a 2005/2006 resident artist with the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She was also 2006 resident artist with Mabou Mines Suite in New York, where she was mentored by famed actress Ruth Maleczech and where her play The Lost Box of Utopia was developed and performed. She is an associate with Juggernaut Theatre Co., where she facilitates a writing workshop, and a member of the NewShoe women's theatre group in New York. She also writes for TV and film. She is a graduate of Ithaca College with a BFA in theatre and is represented by Abrams Artists in New York.
Gregory Gerhard, director, is a freelance director and Associate Artist of Chicago Dramatists who has directed theater with Metropolis Performing Arts Center, Silk Road Theater Project, Firstborn Productions, Actors Workshop Theatre, Raven Theater Workshop, and Shapeshifters Theatre; staged readings with Chicago Dramatists, CAP21 (New York City), Chicago ScriptWorks, Chicago Writers Bloc, and Women's Theater Alliance; and several short films with Big Tree Productions.
Bernal's Picasso is directed by Gregory Gerhard. It is presented as part of the 2008 APS Users Week, which brings together users of the Advanced Photon Source, Center for Nanoscale Materials, and Electron Microscopy Center at Argonne National Laboratory. This production derives from an original script entitled Picasso Meets Crystallography written by Cele Abad-Zapatero. Working through Chicago Dramatists, Cele connected with Gregory Gerhard and Jill Campbell and the three of them have collaborated to adapt the original concept into the present production.
The original script for Picasso Meets Crystallography has been read at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, December, 14, 2007 (sponsored by the faculty and students of the Center); University of Zaragoza, Spain, March 6, 2008 (sponsored by Prof. Larry Falvello and Dra. Milagros Tomas); and Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, March 14, 2008 (sponsored by Drs. Alicia Guasch and Ignacio Fita).
Further information about this unique project can be found here. The author can be reached at caz@uic.edu
The play will be presented in the Auditorium of the APS Conference Center (Bldg. 402) at Argonne.
The play is open to the public.
Photo ID is required to enter the laboratory site.
Visitors need to register prior to the event
by calling 630-252-3751 or 630-252-4793 during regular working hours.
Don't know how to reach Argonne? Confused about the layout of the laboratory site? Here are some navigational aids:
Admission to the play is FREE and open to the public.
However, patrons who do not have an ANL, DOE, or APS User badge, nor are registered participants of the 2008 APS Users Meeting, need to register for a free visitor pass by calling 630-252-3751 or 630-252-4793 during regular working hours.