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Scientific Commentary |
Duet for one, Almeida Theatre, London (January 22nd to March 14th 2009)
Jesus College, Cambridge
Correspondence to: E-mail: jc224@cam.ac.uk
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Peter Brook, the theatre director, once told me in an interview that he had spent 10 years attempting to bring science to the stage. It was difficult, he said, because, at the level of the lab bench, science is essentially reductionist and devoid of emotion and drama. He thought of treating the theme biographically, but decided that scientists are not interested in themselves apart from their science (a notion contradicted, I think, in Michael Frayn's Copenhagen where the ethical and political conflict between the atomic physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg during World War II is portrayed).
In the end Brook decided to dramatize neurological illness, after being impressed with Oliver Sacks's book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The