A partnership between MIT and a local theater group seeks to show the human side of science.
Mara E. Vatz
One night in March, a lively crowd filled an MIT lecture hall for an evening of special relativity. It was no ordinary crowd: an amalgam of scientists, actors, playwrights, and curious Cantabrigians interested in physics, theater, or both. And it was no ordinary lecture; on “stage” in front of the blackboard were three actors who, without the aid of equations or props, engaged the audience of more than 100 with a performance about the complex nature of time and space.
The event was a staged reading of Einstein’s Dreams, a novel written by physicist and MIT humanities professor Alan Lightman. The book explores people’s understanding of time through a collection of poetic fables—imagined dreams that Albert Einstein might have had while developing the theory of relativity. The reading marked the beginning of the Catalyst Collaborative at MIT (CC@MIT), a new partnership between MIT and the Arlington-based Underground Railway Theater (URT). URT and Boston-based Nora Theater Company will take up permanent residence in an MIT-owned building in Central Square for the 2007-2008 season.
Plays have always tackled social and political issues and now science is gaining popularity as a stage-worthy subject, as seen by the success of plays like David Auburn’s Proof, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. If there’s ever been a time when science—and the public’s perception of it—are of contemporary social and political relevance, it’s now.
“I think the reason that this whole area is so hot is in direct response to the national and the governmental backlash against science and the ways in which science is mistrusted—often because of the lack of scientific literacy,” says Alan Brody, associate provost for the arts at MIT. The impact that misunderstanding can have on issues like research funding is no small matter, he says.
The pairing of science and theater could help bring scientists and the public closer together, says Robert Kanigel, director of MIT’s graduate program in science writing. “If MIT moves in any direction, it’s in the direction of breaking down stereotypes of two seemingly different worlds.”
Earlier this month, CC@MIT staged its second reading, this time of Ira Hauptman’s Partition, a play about the self-taught Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan. The play traces Ramanujan’s life from his decision to leave Madras, India, and study with G. H. Hardy in Cambridge, U.K., to his untimely death six years later at the age of 32.
Kanigel, who wrote a biography of Ramanujan, attended the reading and participated in a panel discussion after the reading. Though the script was rich with mathematical references, Kanigel said that during the reading, he found himself thinking that it was really a play about isolation. “The fact that you can express complex math and at the same time be so damn funny is really quite an accomplishment,” said Kanigel.
The origins of CC@MIT can be traced back to the founding three years ago by Lightman and Brody of the “salon,” a group of MIT scientists and local playwrights. They get together regularly over wine and cheese and talk about everything from science and religion, morality, and ethics to the culture of scientists and what theater can do that films or books can’t.
In addition to Lightman, Brody, and Debra Wise, the URT’s artistic director, the salon counts MIT physicists Robert Jaffe, George Benedek, and Nobel laureate Jerome Friedman among its members. “The Catalyst Collaborative grew organically out of the salon,” says Lightman.
Playwrights obviously benefit from working with scientists, by getting a view into the scientific world and raw material for their work. For scientists, the benefits are perhaps more subtle. A play may be able to express the aesthetic of science—the beauty of equations and principles, for example—to a general audience better than an article or a book. “There’s an immediacy in theater and an electricity from a live performance,” says Lightman.
And plays about science could also help scientists better understand each other. A good way to spark interaction among scientists from different disciplines “is to draw them together under a unified interest in the arts,” says Chris Morse, a chemistry professor at Needham-based Olin College and an arts buff.
Scientists don’t always agree with how playwrights portray them on stage. Two common responses that Wise gets from scientists in the audience are, “That’s really how scientists talk” and “Scientists never talk that way.” At the very least, though, Wise says, “the arts can provide a means of dynamic exchange between [scientists] and their work, and the public.”
Mara E. Vatz is a freelance writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts.