Photograph 51

by Anna Ziegler

  GOSLING: I’d say you’re testing me.

  ROSALIND: How so.

  GOSLING: Because if the A form is not helical, then neither can the B form be helical, and yet we are confident that it is.

  ROSALIND: Yes.

  GOSLING: So you were testing me.

  ROSALIND: You always need to rule out the wrong answer, Ray. Don’t forget that.

  GOSLING: So then what’s the right answer?

  ROSALIND: What is the right answer.

  GOSLING: Are you asking me?

  ROSALIND: Do you know it?

  GOSLING: No.

  ROSALIND: Then I’m not asking.

  CASPAR: Watson and Crick struggled with how the four bases fit into the picture. Did they pair up? Work together? Or were they distinct from each other?

  WATSON: You can’t be tired. Are you really tired?

  CRICK: No. I’m wide awake. I’m just feigning fatigue to keep you on your toes.

  WATSON: Are you kidding? I can’t tell if you’re kidding.

  CRICK: I can’t tell either.

  GOSLING: February the 23rd.

  (ROSALIND is studying prints of the A and B forms. She holds them very far away from her face and then very close.)

  ROSALIND: Gosling! Can you come here, Gosling.

  GOSLING: What is it?

  ROSALIND: What are you doing over there, playing solitaire?

  GOSLING: No, I was just—

  ROSALIND: What do you think this is? Nursery school? I mean, we have work to do.

  GOSLING: But you haven’t been wanting my help—

  ROSALIND: Please just stand here, will you. (Beat.) No—that’s too close. Still a little further. I need you to be standing further away so I can think.

  (She picks up the photograph again, studies it.)

  Yes. Both the A and B form are helical. They have to be.

  GOSLING: Two steps away from the solution. Two steps away. She just didn’t know it.

  (WILKINS enters.)

  WILKINS: It’s late. Why don’t you go home.

  ROSALIND: I’m fine.

  WILKINS: Fine.

  (He begins to leave. She is staring at Photograph 51.)

  You’re staring. I can tell you’re doing nothing more than staring. Go home.

  ROSALIND: No.

  WILKINS: Or let me look at it.

  (He goes towards her.)

  Is it the bases? Are you thinking about the bases?

  ROSALIND: I think I’m thinking about how I’ve come to the end of thinking. How there’s nothing left.

  WILKINS: You’re exhausted.

  ROSALIND: Not exhausted. Blank.

  WILKINS: This rarely happens to you.

  ROSALIND: It never happens.

  WILKINS: Never?

  (Beat.)

  You think if you gave an inch, we’d all take a mile, is that it?

  ROSALIND: (Quietly.) It’s true, isn’t it?

  WILKINS: No. I don’t think so.

  ROSALIND: Then you too have come to the end of thought. You should go home, Maurice.

  WILKINS: I could…

  ROSALIND: What?

  WILKINS: We could talk it through. It might help.

  (A long beat. She stares at WILKINS.)

  GOSLING: For a moment, everything stopped. Different ways our lives could go hovered in the air around us.

  (A long beat.)

  ROSALIND: You know, I think I am going to call it a night. I haven’t been home before midnight for a fortnight and really what’s the point of being here and not getting anywhere?

  (She stands abruptly.)

  GOSLING: And then there was only one way everything would go.

  ROSALIND: Goodnight, Maurice.

  (She exits.)

  WILKINS: Goodnight.

  GOSLING: February the 28th, 1953. A barmaid made her way through the Cambridge snow to open the Eagle Pub for the day. Watson and Crick were holed up like birds in a cage that was about to become…the world.

  WATSON: They must pair off. The hydrogen bonds form between the pairs.

  CRICK: Adenine always goes with thymine; cytosine with guanine.

  WATSON: Whenever there’s one on the DNA chain, there’s always the other.

  CRICK: Yes!

  WILKINS: Like a team. A successful team.

  GOSLING: And in the meantime, in a quiet Italian restaurant overlooking the Thames, where waiters stay out of people’s way, Rosalind wondered if she was on a date. She couldn’t be sure. She’d never been on one before.

  (ROSALIND and CASPAR sit at a table together. It’s the end of the meal.)

  CASPAR: I’m glad you didn’t change your mind. You know, I really thought you were going to change your mind. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time.

  ROSALIND: My time.

  CASPAR: Right.

  ROSALIND: To be honest I’m not sure anymore how terribly valuable my time is…Or maybe I haven’t been…allotting it to the right things. I don’t know.

  CASPAR: You don’t know?

  ROSALIND: Well, I…

  CASPAR: You’re serious.

  ROSALIND: I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said anything.

  CASPAR: Haven’t you heard the story about the woman physicist who had to sneak into Princeton’s lab in the middle of the night to use the cyclotron? And you probably know women aren’t even permitted into Harvard’s physics building.

  ROSALIND: Yes. I know that.

  CASPAR: And yet here you are, doing this amazing…no, groundbreaking work. And still you aren’t sure you’re allotting your time correctly? I can’t think of a better allotment of anyone’s time.

  ROSALIND: I don’t know.

  CASPAR: Well, I do.

  (A breath.)

  ROSALIND: Should we get some tea then?

  CASPAR: Rosalind…I have a confession. You might not like it.

  ROSALIND: What?

  CASPAR: I hate tea. I hate it. I mean, I really hate it. I can’t even pretend to like it.

  ROSALIND: Oh. Well, that is pretty bad. I think I’m rethinking everything I ever thought about you.

  CASPAR: (A genuine question.) What did you think about me?

  (Beat. Awkward. Then, ROSALIND considers it.)

  ROSALIND: (Honestly, openly.) I thought…you seemed balanced.

  CASPAR: If by balance you mean always about to take a horrible misstep and have it all come crashing down around me, then maybe…

  ROSALIND: No…See, I’ve never had a balance.

  (Beat.)

  CASPAR: No?

  ROSALIND: No.

  CASPAR: But you’ve been happy.

  (A long beat—she is taken aback.)

  ROSALIND: Of course.

  (Beat.)

  Of course. Otherwise, why would I have…

  CASPAR: Why would you have what?

  ROSALIND: Continued on, I guess, in this way.

  CASPAR: Right. You wouldn’t have.

  ROSALIND: Right.

  CASPAR: You know, I have this theory…I think the things we want but can’t have are probably the things that define us…And I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit coming to this pretty simple conclusion so I hope you don’t think it’s completely ridiculous. But…I guess I’m talking about…I don’t know…yearning?

  ROSALIND: Yearning?

  CASPAR: I mean…what do you want, Rosalind?

  ROSALIND: So many things: to wake up without feeling the weight of the day pressing down, to fall asleep more easily, without wondering what it is that’s keeping me awake, to eat more greens and also beetroot, to be kissed, to feel important, to learn how to be okay being with other people, and also how to be alone. To be a child again, held up and admired, the world full of endless future. To see my father look at me with uncomplicated pride. To be kissed. To feel every day what it would be to stand at the summit of a mountain in Wales, or Switzerland, or America, looking out over the world on a late afternoon with this man sitting across from me. Or to feel it once.


  GOSLING: But instead she said:

  ROSALIND: (Sadly.) I don’t know.

  (CASPAR takes her hand.)

  CRICK: It’s two strands. The bases go in the middle and the phosphates on the outside. It has to be.

  WATSON: And we match the larger base with the smaller one.

  (They step back and look at the model they’ve created. Silence.)

  WATSON: Crick.

  CRICK: Wait. Don’t say anything.

  (WATSON holds up his sketch of Photograph 51; they look from sketch to model and back again.)

  CASPAR: Is this okay?

  GOSLING: There’s no science that can explain it. Loneliness.

  (ROSALIND looks down at her hand in his. The moment of possibility lingers. Then a strange look comes over her face.)

  CASPAR: Rosalind?

  (She clutches her stomach.)

  WATSON: They match, Francis. It works.

  (A very long beat.)

  CRICK: It’s…

  WATSON: I can’t believe it.

  CRICK: It’s life unfolding, right in front of us.

  (ROSALIND doubles over in her chair, and gasps.)

  CASPAR: Rosalind?

  WILKINS: It’s the loneliest pursuit in the world. Science. Because there either are answers or there aren’t. There either is a landscape that stretches before you or there isn’t. And when there isn’t, when you’re left in the darkness of an empty city at night, you have only yourself.

  CASPAR: I’ll get you help. I’ll bring you somewhere.

  ROSALIND: A doctor.

  CASPAR: Yes.

  ROSALIND: Thank you.

  CASPAR: Please don’t thank me.

  ROSALIND: Don’t worry—I won’t do it again. It wasn’t easy for me.

  (Lights shift.)

  WILKINS: When they said they had something to show me, I had a feeling. All the way there on the train, the world seemed to move very quickly, as though passing me by.

  (He gets to Cambridge and sees the model.)

  CRICK: Well?

  WATSON: Say something, Wilkins.

  ROSALIND: (To the audience.) I have two tumors. Twin tumors. Twins scampering around my body on tricycles, dropping handfuls of dirt as they go…For a moment I think of naming one Watson and the other Crick, but no, I tell myself: Rosalind, dispel the thought. (Beat.) No. I have ovarian cancer. A tumor in each ovary, one the size of a tennis ball, and the other a croquet ball, and they are indeed an efficient pair.

  WATSON: You’re really just going to stand there gaping? After all this?

  CRICK: Let’s have something at least. Come on. Give us something.

  WILKINS: (Resolutely.) I think you’re a couple of old rogues but you may well have something. I think it’s a very exciting notion and who the hell got it isn’t what matters.

  WATSON: (Matter-of-factly.) An exciting notion? It’s the secret of life, Wilkins.

  WILKINS: (Sadly.) But is it? Is it really, Jim?

  CASPAR: Rosalind, listen to me.

  ROSALIND: Why? I’m not sure there is much else one could choose to see on those X-rays.

  CASPAR: I’m going to find another hospital.

  ROSALIND: Just go home, Don. I’m fine here.

  CASPAR: How could you possibly think I’d leave you here all alone?

  ROSALIND: But why would you stay?

  CASPAR: Because I like you.

  ROSALIND: (Sadly.) You like me.

  (He exits. The lights shift.)

  WILKINS: Dear Miss Franklin.

  No.

  Rosalind.

  No.

  Dear Dr. Franklin: I was so sorry to hear about your illness. I’m sure you’ll come out on the other side of it, however, and be back at King’s in no time. Really, you haven’t missed much. Things have been exceptionally dull around here. The equipment is getting dusty from disuse; it’s been raining nonstop, of course; Watson and Crick discovered the secret of life. My teeth hurt in the mornings, just after I wake up. Dr. Randall sends his regards. We all miss you.

  No.

  We trust you’ll soon be well.

  Yours, Maurice Wilkins.

  (Lights shift.)

  WATSON: (Holding up the copy of ‘Nature’.) Can you believe it, Crick? I mean, can you really believe it?

  CRICK: I can’t, I can’t.

  WATSON: Why do you seem so tired? I can’t sit still. I’m energized. I want to take on everything now. The world. Everything. Women. You know.

  CRICK: And you will.

  WATSON: Crick?

  CRICK: You will…I’m just tired, I think.

  WATSON: But wasn’t it worth it? Now we’ll never be forgotten.

  CRICK: Never.

  WATSON: That’s right.

  CRICK: Never forgotten.

  WATSON: Francis?

  CRICK: Truly all I ever wanted was to support my family, to do science, to make some small difference in the world.

  WATSON: Is it really so awful that you ended up making a big difference instead?

  CRICK: Odile has taken the guest room as her own. She moved her things into it slowly, gradually, over the last few months. She was clever. It was only when nothing was left that I realized she was gone.

  (Beat, as WATSON takes this in. Then a truly genuine moment.)

  WATSON: I’m sorry, Francis.

  CRICK: Thank you, Jim. That means a lot to me.

  (Lights shift. ROSALIND sees WILKINS in her office.)

  ROSALIND: Maurice, what are you doing here? Why on earth are you sitting in my office in the dark?

  WILKINS: Oh—I’m so sorry; I thought you were still…

  ROSALIND: (Matter-of-factly.) I escaped.

  WILKINS: You—?

  ROSALIND: I don’t intend to spend any more time in that hospital. If I’m going to be in a dank, disgusting little room, I may as well be here, where I might even get some work done before I die.

  WILKINS: Please don’t say that.

  ROSALIND: Why not? It’s not pleasant? It makes you think about your own life? The inevitability of your own death?

  WILKINS: Yes. All of those things.

  ROSALIND: Well, no one can protect you from those.

  WILKINS: No. No I suppose not.

  ROSALIND: We lose. In the end, we lose. The work is never finished and in the meantime our bodies wind down, tick slower, sputter out.

  WILKINS: Like grandfather clocks.

  ROSALIND: Well this has been a pleasant conversation.

  WILKINS: Rosalind, I…

  (Beat.)

  ROSALIND: When I was fifteen or sixteen, my family went on holiday to Norway. One morning, we woke at four and started up Storgalten…Mother couldn’t stop complaining— it was too early, and too cold—until she looked around, that is. Because there we were, in the middle of a cloud. And we walked through it for what felt like an eternity, and there was no one else and there was no earth, no complicated history, no war about to unfold, just us, walking through this particular morning, watching the day begin.

  At the time I told my father that I was moved by the natural beauty of our world: clouds—frozen crystals of ice suspended in the air, evaporating just before they hit the ground.

  My father looked at me in a new way. He said yes that was true, but really we were seeing God—my father, who never believed. A man of science through and through. And when the sun rose, and the cloud lifted, we walked out onto the glacier, and he wept.

  (Beat.)

  WILKINS: You know…I’ve never felt the two have to be at odds.

  ROSALIND: And yet they are intrinsically, unavoidably at odds.

  (Beat.)

  ROSALIND: So they really got it, did they? Our friends.

  WILKINS: Yes.

  ROSALIND: And is the model…is it just beautiful?

  WILKINS: Yes.

  ROSALIND: Well. We were close, weren’t we? By god, we were close.

  WILKINS: But we lost.

  ROSALIND: Lost? No…We all won. The world won, didn’t it?


  WILKINS: But aren’t you at all…

  ROSALIND: Yes, but…It’s not that they got it first…It really isn’t…It’s that I didn’t see it. I wish I’d been able to see it.

  WILKINS: I suspect you didn’t allow yourself to see it…

  ROSALIND: No, but with a little more time, I like to think I would have.

  WILKINS: A few more days, even.

  ROSALIND: So then why didn’t I get those days? Didn’t I deserve them?

  (Beat.)

  I mean, if I’d only…

  GOSLING: Been more careful around the beam.

  WATSON: Collaborated.

  CRICK: Been more open, less wary. Less self-protective.

  CASPAR: Or more wary, more self-protective.

  WATSON: Been a better scientist.

  CASPAR: Been willing to take more risks, make models, go forward without the certainty of proof.

  CRICK: Been friendlier.

  GOSLING: Or born at another time.

  CRICK: Or born a man.

  ROSALIND: But you’ll see. The work never ends. Next month I’m going to go to a conference in Leeds with one of my colleagues from Paris. We’re going to drive there, stop off at some Norman churches along the way.

  WILKINS: Churches?

  ROSALIND: I do love the shapes of things, you know. I love them even before they mean something.

  GOSLING: But she never went to Leeds. Rosalind was thirty-seven when she died. It was a particularly cold April that year; there was frost on the trees in London; the Alps stayed snow-covered well into June.

  WILKINS: No, no, no…I won’t have it.

  GOSLING: Eulogies about her focused on her single-minded devotion to work, the progress she made in her work, the lasting contributions she made through her work.

  WILKINS: (To GOSLING.) Stop that! I said: stop that right now.

  GOSLING: I can’t. It’s what happened.

  CRICK: It’s the tricky thing about time, and memory. I tell my grandchildren: whole worlds of things we wish had happened are as real in our heads as what actually did occur.

  WILKINS: Stop that right now. We start again. At the beginning. This instant.

  CASPAR: So you do have something to apologize for. Is that it?

  WILKINS: Not if we start again.

  WATSON: You’ve got to be kidding me, Wilkins. I mean, you won. We won. Your name on the Nobel Prize. Remember that part? For God’s sakes: this was the finest moment in your life.

  WILKINS: No. It wasn’t.

  (He turns to ROSALIND.)

  We start again. Just us this time.