Photograph 51

As the play begins, Rosalind Franklin takes the stage in a rare moment of solitude. She describes the events that are about to unfold in loose detail, recalling her days as a researcher at King’s College London. As Rosalind describes feeling “powerful,” capable, and deeply connected to her instruments and her work, the joy she takes in the process of researching and spending time solving problems becomes apparent.

 Towards the end of her speech, however, Rosalind admits—with some regret—that at times, she and her fellow colleagues, for all the “power” their research tools lent them, failed to see the obvious. This passage introduces several of the play’s major thematic concerns: the benefits and obstacles inherent in collaborative relationships; the differences between choices, actions, chance, and fate; and the cruel, unrelenting passage of time. Though the audience may be either intimately familiar with Rosalind Franklin’s story—or, on the other hand, completely unaware of her life’s work and her lasting impact on the scientific community—this passage establishes Rosalind as a self-aware woman who remains troubled and conflicted, even in death, about the course her life ended up taking.

As Rosalind Franklin prepares to join the research team in the laboratory at King’s College, she writes to the man she believes is to be her equal and colleague, Maurice Wilkins, to frankly and simply let him know the materials she requires and expects. This passage establishes Rosalind’s straightforward, intense nature, and the ways in which she has learned to ask directly for what she needs.

Rather than seeing his new colleague’s directness as an admirable virtue, Wilkins is disgusted and off-put by Rosalind’s letter—all because she is a woman. This passage introduces the thread of sexism that runs through the play, and indeed through all of Wilkins’ and Rosalind’s future interactions. By patronizingly addressing Rosalind as “Miss Franklin” in his response, Wilkins shows that he’s not planning on taking Rosalind’s requests seriously—in fact, he’s not planning on taking her seriously at all. Wilkins has certain ideas about how women should behave, and Rosalind has already challenged those even before her arrival. This passage foreshadows the tension that will come to define their relationship—and the cruel callousness with which Wilkins will treat Rosalind each time she fails to inhabit his preconceived notions of what femininity looks like.

When Rosalind arrives at King’s College, she finds that the rug has been pulled out from under her, so to speak. She believes that she’s been brought to London to work as an equal alongside Maurice Wilkins in the study of proteins—but upon her arrival, he informs her that in order to keep up with the worldwide “race” to uncover the structure and behavior of DNA, the lab’s priorities have shifted, and Rosalind will be working under him on a project other than the one she believed she’d be pursuing. Rosalind is indignant, to say the least, and expresses her desire to work alone on her own projects. Wilkins condescendingly suggests Rosalind simply reframe her way of thinking and learn to consider him her partner—Rosalind knows that she has no choice about whether or not to accept Wilkins’ proposition.

This passage embodies the sexism and condescension which drive a rift between Rosalind and Wilkins from their very first meeting, and it demonstrates the constant struggle the two have to define the boundaries of their work. While Wilkins wants to collaborate, Rosalind wants to work in isolation for reasons he can’t begin to comprehend, and his cruel treatment of her only intensifies her resistance to compromising and learning to work together.

In this passage, Wilkins and Rosalind discuss Wilkins’s work on the Manhattan Project, the U.S.’s nuclear weapons development project during World War II. Wilkins doesn’t understand why “the Jews” aren’t more grateful for the work that led to their liberation—work that he was a part of. Wilkins might think that because he contributed to the project that ultimately led to the end of World War II (and of the genocidal Nazi Regime in Germany), he is incapable of saying antisemitic things.

But here, Wilkins seems to believe (at least to some extent) that all Jewish people are the same, as he lumps “the Jews” together. While perhaps unintentional, this way of talking about Jewish people is subtly antisemitic—especially given that Rosalind, whom he’s speaking to, is Jewish. And when Rosalind challenges Wilkins on this, he further condescends to her by calling her “Rosy.” Even if Wilkins doesn’t intend to be sexist or antisemitic, the way he’s speaking to Rosalind makes her feel alienated—and it will forever stunt their already-tenuous working relationship.

Wilkins’s attitude in this passage also subtly implies that professional accolades are important to him, as he wants people to appreciate the work that he contributed to. Throughout the play, Wilkins and Rosalind are constantly at odds when it comes to their personal values and their professional aspirations. While Wilkins is ambitious and eager to be recognized for his accomplishments, Rosalind is more focused on a genuine love of research and how scientific developments can benefit humanity as a whole. This passage, in which Rosalind disapproves of Wilkins’s work on the nuclear bomb for moral reasons, sets up their opposing values and foreshadows an uneasy partnership going forward.

On her first day at the laboratory, Rosalind is informed she’ll be assigned to a specialty other than the one she believed she’d been brought on to research, condescended to on the basis of her sex and her religion, and, finally, excluded from joining her colleague Maurice Wilkins in the all-male common room for lunch. In this passage, as Rosalind expresses her frustration to her assistant Ray Gosling, Ziegler investigates the ways in which sexism perpetuates itself in the workplace as women are excluded from opportunities for community, collaboration, or advancement.

This passage also gives insight into Rosalind’s unyielding commitment to her work. One of the main reasons why she feels slighted in this instance is because she fears that being unable to socialize and collaborate with her male colleagues means that her research will suffer. Unlike some of her more ambitious male colleagues, Rosalind’s primary motivation is a genuine love of her work and an interest in benefitting humanity through her research.

Rosalind’s desire to work alone and isolate herself in the laboratory is not a product of coldness or an antisocial disposition—rather, it is a defense mechanism that she’s developed in order to prevent herself from feeling helpless and excluded in a cutthroat, sexist environment. Even as Wilkins claims to want Rosalind as a partner and an equal, he excludes her from spaces where the “discoveries” of science actually happen—and this contributes to how she’s underestimated and denigrated in their professional circle.

In this passage, Rosalind and Wilkins have one of their rare friendly conversations as they discuss their respective weekends. As Rosalind tells Wilkins about attending a production of The Winter’s Tale in the West End, one of the play’s central symbols emerges. The parallels between Shakespeare’s classic play and the storyline of Photograph 51 emerge, and the former play takes on a great metaphoric significance throughout the latter.

In The Winter’s Tale, the jealous Leontes kills his wife, Hermione, when he suspects her of infidelity, only to later bring her back from the dead when he realizes the error of his ways and is overcome by regret. This storyline parallels Wilkins’s mistreatment of Rosalind, as well as his contrite desire to “begin again” only after her death. The second major way in which this particular production of The Winter’s Tale parallels the story of Rosalind’s life is Rosalind’s own inability to recall the name of the actress who played Hermione. The actress fades into obscurity while her male counterpart delivers an indelible performance—much as Wilkins, Watson, and Crick would subsume Rosalind Franklin in history’s collective memory in spite of the fact that they preyed upon Rosalind’s research in order to skyrocket to fame.

In this passage, Watson and Crick, functioning as a kind of chorus, discuss the many impromptu solo camping and hiking trips Rosalind would take rather than showing up to work in the laboratory at King’s College. The men are baffled by Rosalind’s desire to isolate herself from her research—and, in their estimation, waste precious time that could very well have allowed her to win the “race” toward the discovery of DNA’s structure had she spent it more wisely. Watson and Crick also compare themselves to fate itself, invoking the play’s theme of choices and actions versus chance and fate. The men wonder if Rosalind ever felt the ticking clock of her life pressing “at her back,” or if she ever sensed them as her competitors in the “race” that would come to define her professional life. There is no difference, in Watson and Crick’s view, between the realm of human choice and action and the larger realm of chance and fate—all four forces conspire to weigh on and influence a person’s life.

After Maurice Wilkins delivers a lecture at King’s College which incorporates Rosalind’s research—but subtly passes her work off as his own—Rosalind confronts her difficult colleague. Wilkins gives into sexist tropes and behaviors as he attempts to tell Rosalind that she’s overreacting to his actions before insulting her professionalism and her research methods to boot. This passage shows how the pervasive patterns of sexism and petty cruelty Wilkins chooses to perpetuate in his relationship with Rosalind contribute to her desire to isolate herself from him, creating a vicious cycle in which both of their research is hindered, stunted, and prevented from reaching its full potential. Wilkins is frustrated with Rosalind’s methods—but as he goes behind her back, discounts her contributions and findings, and steals her glory for himself perhaps in an attempt to force her to give in to him, he only isolates her further.

At the height of his frustration with Rosalind, Wilkins seeks out the company of an old friend, Francis Crick, and Crick’s new research partner, the headstrong young scientist James Watson. As he vents to his male colleagues about his anger toward Rosalind, Watson and Crick chime in and begin discussing Rosalind in sexist, antisemitic terms. At the height of the men’s cruelty, Don Caspar—Rosalind’s soon-to-be assistant—steps in to defend her, explaining the ways in which the men’s scientific training has caused them to think in narrow, crude ways. These three men’s repeated verbal cruelty towards Rosalind causes them to think of her as an enemy or a rival rather than an intelligent colleague. Their treatment of her causes her to isolate herself from them further, which only fuels their vitriol toward her—and their feelings that she should, perhaps, be more grateful just for a seat at the table. These pervasive and destructive patterns ultimately result in Wilkins’ betrayal of Rosalind, allowing Watson and Crick to piggyback off of her hard work and claim credit for her ideas and breakthroughs, a mystery the play endeavors to solve by examining all sides of it.

In this passage, Rosalind Franklin and her research assistant, the young and eager Ray Gosling, have just developed a photo they’ve recently taken with their X-ray machine. It is the 51st photograph of DNA they’ve taken—and little do they know that it will be remembered throughout history as an infamous object which provided humanity with the first glimpse of DNA’ structure. As Rosalind and Ray stare at the photograph, Ray has an inkling of what it is the photo reveals—and though Rosalind does too, she insists on downplaying its importance, keeping it in a desk drawer, and hiding it from Maurice Wilkins. As Rosalind privately delves into memoir in this monologue delivered as an aside to the audience, she reveals the reasoning behind her desire to keep the groundbreaking photograph private for now. As a woman in science, she knows that she “must never be wrong.” In other words, she can’t risk losing her already-tenuous credibility within her sexist and antisemitic community. This passage explains a lot of the reasoning behind Rosalind’s desire to keep her research close to the chest, work in isolation, and take her time delivering the results of her work—things that frustrate and anger her colleagues as they encourage her to collaborate, speed up, and participate more fully in the “race” to uncover the structure of DNA.

After the discovery of what Photograph 51 may hold, Rosalind makes the controversial decision to put it away in a drawer and keep her findings from her research partner, Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind knows that if the photograph contains nothing and she is wrong about its potential, she’ll be laughed at and shunned. But she also knows that if it holds the key to DNA’s structure, it might be taken from her by Wilkins and passed off as his own achievement. When Wilkins walks in on Rosalind and Gosling resolving to celebrate, he wants to know what there is to celebrate—and when Rosalind refuses to tell him, an ideological fight ensues.

This passage contains the secret to the animosity between Wilkins and Rosalind, as does the scene directly preceding it. Rosalind has ways of moving through the world and conducting her work that are designed to protect her tenuous position in the scientific community—methods that Wilkins cannot understand, and that Rosalind is loath to share. They can never step into one another’s shoes and see things from the other’s point of view, and this tension and frustration poisons their working relationship and their personal estimations of one another. Rosalind resents Wilkins for not understanding her (or even trying to), and Wilkins resents Rosalind for behaving in a way which confounds him. As a result, they continue to misunderstand and discount the other, making fruitful collaboration an impossibility.

Francis Crick has been working hurriedly and tirelessly alongside his partner, James Watson, to repeatedly model and attempt to discern the structure of DNA. The two men have been devoted to winning the “race” they’re in with their other colleagues in England and around the world, and they harbor dreams of fame, recognition, and lifelong security should their endeavor be a success. In this passage, however, Crick stops to breathe for a moment and concedes that he’s confused about the goals and merits of their breakneck race. The men have been struggling to understand how Rosalind could possibly resist throwing her entire life into the race and devoting every moment to getting ahead. And in this passage, Crick at last begins to understand that perhaps there is more to life than coming in first. Perhaps the desire for success and recognition, he’s coming to realize, is foolish or fruitless—perhaps, he concedes, Rosalind understood something about the nature of time, fate, and life that he and Watson never did.

In this passage, Wilkins, frustrated by Rosalind’s closed-mouth approach to sharing her research and her unwillingness to collaborate, visits Cambridge to vent his anger to their colleagues Watson and Crick.

Watson is eager for Wilkins to share the details of Rosalind’s vexing behavior for his own amusement, while Crick is “actually worried” about Wilkins’s mental state and stunted professional life. This illustrates the differences between Watson, who is more focused on professional success, and Crick, who is more focused on personal values. Of course, Watson and Crick are both motivated by the desire for professional acclaim and glory—and Wilkins is too. But in highlighting a discrepancy between Watson and Crick, the play suggests that in a cutthroat environment like the scientific research community, there is always tension between the personal and the professional. Wilkins, who (like Watson and Crick) dreams of professional glory, turns to the likeminded pair out of frustration with Rosalind. Rosalind is more interested in the thrill of her work and the fulfillment she gets from making discoveries that could help people—but she doesn’t leap to gloat about her findings or share them with the wider scientific community.

Wilkins, however, cannot understand the societal barriers—namely sexism and antisemitism—that have led Rosalind to be guarded about to her work. As a result, he insensitively gossips about her behind her back and even shares her work without her permission. He’s unaware that Watson and Crick are still working on DNA research, and that sharing Rosalind’s X-ray photo of DNA (the titular Photograph 51) with them will lead to Watson, Crick, and Wilkins winning the Nobel Prize without Rosalind receiving her due credit. Rather than patiently waiting for Rosalind to share her findings with him or attempting to understand the intentions behind her peculiar methods, Wilkins unintentionally betrays her to their rivals. This is a testament to how differences in values and in personal experience—Wilkins has no idea what it’s like to experience sexism or antisemitism, after all—can drive a wedge in professional relationships.

In this passage, Ziegler allows her characters to step outside of time and space and address one another directly as they confront the betrayals, failures, and insufficiencies of their personal and professional relationships. As Watson and Crick essentially steal ideas from Rosalind’s careful research, Wilkins—who has, up to this point, had few qualms about sharing her materials with them—is at last able to see that they’re being cruel and unfair. Previously, he wasn’t even aware that Watson and Crick were still working on DNA research, so he didn’t suspect that they had an ulterior motive. But here, he calls them out on their repeated infringements of Rosalind’s work. Outside of the action, separated from the events that occurred in his lifetime, he is able to see how unfair the situation was all along—and how profoundly the deck was stacked against himself and Rosalind for a multitude of reasons, Watson and Crick’s self-serving ambition being one of them. The forces of time are working against Wilkins and Rosalind, but largely because of Wilkins’s own actions, which he now appears to regret.

In this passage, Maurice Wilkins walks in on Rosalind sitting in the laboratory late at night, puzzling over Photograph 51 and attempting to discern its meaning. Rosalind expresses her frustration with the photo, at which point Wilkins offers to help her—if only she’ll open up to him about her thoughts. “For a moment,” their assistant Gosling observes from the sidelines, the possibility that the two scientists might put aside their pride, their resentments, and their fears and at last collaborate in pursuit of a shared goal hangs in the air—but it dissipates as Rosalind turns Wilkins down, unknowingly making a move that will forever impede them from winning the race to uncover the structure of DNA. This passage is significant because it ties in with so many of the play’s themes: the ways in which human choices and actions unknowingly turn the tides of fate and chance, the fickle and unforgiving nature of time, and the tension between the desire to live one’s life (and do one’s work) in isolation versus the need to collaborate, share, and commune with other individuals. Rosalind and Wilkins have, in this passage, one final chance to turn the tides of fate, but neither of them seizes it, and instead their failure to win the race is forever sealed.

In this scene, two different locations—and two very different happenings—are highlighted simultaneously. In Cambridge, Crick and Watson finalize their new model of DNA, which they’ve built using research cribbed from Rosalind’s lab. Back in London, Rosalind, who has finally consented to have dinner with her new research assistant, Don Caspar, experiences intense abdominal pain, which she’ll soon learn is due to a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. While Watson and Crick unfairly uncover the secret of life, Rosalind’s life begins coming to a swift and unfair end. There are thematic and circumstantial similarities to be found between the two scenes, even as, ironically, all of Rosalind’s work to ascertain the origins of life end in her death. Wilkins, distraught and overwhelmed by the cruel twists of fate he’s witnessing, steps forward to comment upon the cruel loneliness science offers—providing answers to those who don’t deserve them while denying any sense of logic or fairness to those who have been pursuing truth and transcendence for so long.

In the midst of her battle with ovarian cancer, which has taken the form of two large tumors, one in each ovary, Rosalind leaves the hospital in order to return to her laboratory at King’s College London and continue work—even though she’s ill, and even though Watson and Crick have already won the DNA “race.” Maurice Wilkins is surprised to see Rosalind back at work and asks her what she’s doing there. In response, Rosalind grimly states that there are still things she wants to accomplish before she dies, and then laments the frail, doomed nature of the human body. Wilkins states that bodies—and lives—are “like grandfather clocks,” thus admitting to his own anxieties about the inevitability and terror of time. The ways in which time serves as humanity’s enemy are thematically at play throughout the entire drama—but only now, as it draws to the close, do two of its characters outrightly lament the fact that time has bested them.

In this brief passage, Rosalind thinks about the what-ifs of her life. Her male colleagues, acting as a kind of chorus, step forward to enumerate her regrets.

One reading of this passage is that Rosalind’s colleagues (Gosling, Watson, Crick, and Caspar) are offering up their honest guesses as to how Rosalind might have attained professional glory. But another interpretation is that the men are somehow channeling Rosalind’s own curiosities about what she might have done differently over the course of her life, and how different choices along the way might have affected the outcome of her life.

Up until this point, Rosalind’s male colleagues have been largely unsympathetic about what they perceive as her professional and personal shortcomings—yet now, their comments read as compassionate and regretful. The men, whose treatment of Rosalind has ranged from outrightly cruel to simply insufficiently kind or helpful, now concede that there were several barriers (many of which they themselves created or contributed to) that stood between her and the professional renown that her work deserved. In other words, the men seem to finally empathize with the struggles Rosalind has faced as a Jewish woman who’s been held back by sexism and antisemitism. They acknowledge both the concrete circumstances and uncontrollable forces (like Rosalind’s cancer diagnosis) that contributed to her personal and professional failures—and they collectively join her in lamenting the hardships that held her back for so many years.

In the play’s final moments, Wilkins and Rosalind return to the one topic which allowed them to share some common ground during their uneasy partnership at King’s College. Suspended in time and space. Wilkins and Rosalind discuss The Winter’s Tale and their differing opinions on its fantastical ending offer a metaphysical reading of their own story. While Wilkins believes that Leontes’s grief and contrition succeeds in summoning his wife Hermione back from the dead, Rosalind believes Leontes merely “projects life” in order to ease his guilty conscience, then ultimately winds up alone in the end. This passage reveals Wilkins’ enduring desire to somehow right the wrongs he leveled against Rosalind during her life—he treated her as badly and unfairly as Leontes treated his queen, and now must face the fact that he cannot bring Rosalind back from the dead, atone for his sins against her, or rewrite their painful shared history.

As the play begins, Rosalind Franklin takes the stage in a rare moment of solitude. She describes the events that are about to unfold in loose detail, recalling her days as a researcher at King’s College London. As Rosalind describes feeling “powerful,” capable, and deeply connected to her instruments and her work, the joy she takes in the process of researching and spending time solving problems becomes apparent.

 Towards the end of her speech, however, Rosalind admits—with some regret—that at times, she and her fellow colleagues, for all the “power” their research tools lent them, failed to see the obvious. This passage introduces several of the play’s major thematic concerns: the benefits and obstacles inherent in collaborative relationships; the differences between choices, actions, chance, and fate; and the cruel, unrelenting passage of time. Though the audience may be either intimately familiar with Rosalind Franklin’s story—or, on the other hand, completely unaware of her life’s work and her lasting impact on the scientific community—this passage establishes Rosalind as a self-aware woman who remains troubled and conflicted, even in death, about the course her life ended up taking.

As Rosalind Franklin prepares to join the research team in the laboratory at King’s College, she writes to the man she believes is to be her equal and colleague, Maurice Wilkins, to frankly and simply let him know the materials she requires and expects. This passage establishes Rosalind’s straightforward, intense nature, and the ways in which she has learned to ask directly for what she needs.

Rather than seeing his new colleague’s directness as an admirable virtue, Wilkins is disgusted and off-put by Rosalind’s letter—all because she is a woman. This passage introduces the thread of sexism that runs through the play, and indeed through all of Wilkins’ and Rosalind’s future interactions. By patronizingly addressing Rosalind as “Miss Franklin” in his response, Wilkins shows that he’s not planning on taking Rosalind’s requests seriously—in fact, he’s not planning on taking her seriously at all. Wilkins has certain ideas about how women should behave, and Rosalind has already challenged those even before her arrival. This passage foreshadows the tension that will come to define their relationship—and the cruel callousness with which Wilkins will treat Rosalind each time she fails to inhabit his preconceived notions of what femininity looks like.

When Rosalind arrives at King’s College, she finds that the rug has been pulled out from under her, so to speak. She believes that she’s been brought to London to work as an equal alongside Maurice Wilkins in the study of proteins—but upon her arrival, he informs her that in order to keep up with the worldwide “race” to uncover the structure and behavior of DNA, the lab’s priorities have shifted, and Rosalind will be working under him on a project other than the one she believed she’d be pursuing. Rosalind is indignant, to say the least, and expresses her desire to work alone on her own projects. Wilkins condescendingly suggests Rosalind simply reframe her way of thinking and learn to consider him her partner—Rosalind knows that she has no choice about whether or not to accept Wilkins’ proposition.

This passage embodies the sexism and condescension which drive a rift between Rosalind and Wilkins from their very first meeting, and it demonstrates the constant struggle the two have to define the boundaries of their work. While Wilkins wants to collaborate, Rosalind wants to work in isolation for reasons he can’t begin to comprehend, and his cruel treatment of her only intensifies her resistance to compromising and learning to work together.

In this passage, Wilkins and Rosalind discuss Wilkins’s work on the Manhattan Project, the U.S.’s nuclear weapons development project during World War II. Wilkins doesn’t understand why “the Jews” aren’t more grateful for the work that led to their liberation—work that he was a part of. Wilkins might think that because he contributed to the project that ultimately led to the end of World War II (and of the genocidal Nazi Regime in Germany), he is incapable of saying antisemitic things.

But here, Wilkins seems to believe (at least to some extent) that all Jewish people are the same, as he lumps “the Jews” together. While perhaps unintentional, this way of talking about Jewish people is subtly antisemitic—especially given that Rosalind, whom he’s speaking to, is Jewish. And when Rosalind challenges Wilkins on this, he further condescends to her by calling her “Rosy.” Even if Wilkins doesn’t intend to be sexist or antisemitic, the way he’s speaking to Rosalind makes her feel alienated—and it will forever stunt their already-tenuous working relationship.

Wilkins’s attitude in this passage also subtly implies that professional accolades are important to him, as he wants people to appreciate the work that he contributed to. Throughout the play, Wilkins and Rosalind are constantly at odds when it comes to their personal values and their professional aspirations. While Wilkins is ambitious and eager to be recognized for his accomplishments, Rosalind is more focused on a genuine love of research and how scientific developments can benefit humanity as a whole. This passage, in which Rosalind disapproves of Wilkins’s work on the nuclear bomb for moral reasons, sets up their opposing values and foreshadows an uneasy partnership going forward.

On her first day at the laboratory, Rosalind is informed she’ll be assigned to a specialty other than the one she believed she’d been brought on to research, condescended to on the basis of her sex and her religion, and, finally, excluded from joining her colleague Maurice Wilkins in the all-male common room for lunch. In this passage, as Rosalind expresses her frustration to her assistant Ray Gosling, Ziegler investigates the ways in which sexism perpetuates itself in the workplace as women are excluded from opportunities for community, collaboration, or advancement.

This passage also gives insight into Rosalind’s unyielding commitment to her work. One of the main reasons why she feels slighted in this instance is because she fears that being unable to socialize and collaborate with her male colleagues means that her research will suffer. Unlike some of her more ambitious male colleagues, Rosalind’s primary motivation is a genuine love of her work and an interest in benefitting humanity through her research.

Rosalind’s desire to work alone and isolate herself in the laboratory is not a product of coldness or an antisocial disposition—rather, it is a defense mechanism that she’s developed in order to prevent herself from feeling helpless and excluded in a cutthroat, sexist environment. Even as Wilkins claims to want Rosalind as a partner and an equal, he excludes her from spaces where the “discoveries” of science actually happen—and this contributes to how she’s underestimated and denigrated in their professional circle.

In this passage, Rosalind and Wilkins have one of their rare friendly conversations as they discuss their respective weekends. As Rosalind tells Wilkins about attending a production of The Winter’s Tale in the West End, one of the play’s central symbols emerges. The parallels between Shakespeare’s classic play and the storyline of Photograph 51 emerge, and the former play takes on a great metaphoric significance throughout the latter.

In The Winter’s Tale, the jealous Leontes kills his wife, Hermione, when he suspects her of infidelity, only to later bring her back from the dead when he realizes the error of his ways and is overcome by regret. This storyline parallels Wilkins’s mistreatment of Rosalind, as well as his contrite desire to “begin again” only after her death. The second major way in which this particular production of The Winter’s Tale parallels the story of Rosalind’s life is Rosalind’s own inability to recall the name of the actress who played Hermione. The actress fades into obscurity while her male counterpart delivers an indelible performance—much as Wilkins, Watson, and Crick would subsume Rosalind Franklin in history’s collective memory in spite of the fact that they preyed upon Rosalind’s research in order to skyrocket to fame.

In this passage, Watson and Crick, functioning as a kind of chorus, discuss the many impromptu solo camping and hiking trips Rosalind would take rather than showing up to work in the laboratory at King’s College. The men are baffled by Rosalind’s desire to isolate herself from her research—and, in their estimation, waste precious time that could very well have allowed her to win the “race” toward the discovery of DNA’s structure had she spent it more wisely. Watson and Crick also compare themselves to fate itself, invoking the play’s theme of choices and actions versus chance and fate. The men wonder if Rosalind ever felt the ticking clock of her life pressing “at her back,” or if she ever sensed them as her competitors in the “race” that would come to define her professional life. There is no difference, in Watson and Crick’s view, between the realm of human choice and action and the larger realm of chance and fate—all four forces conspire to weigh on and influence a person’s life.

After Maurice Wilkins delivers a lecture at King’s College which incorporates Rosalind’s research—but subtly passes her work off as his own—Rosalind confronts her difficult colleague. Wilkins gives into sexist tropes and behaviors as he attempts to tell Rosalind that she’s overreacting to his actions before insulting her professionalism and her research methods to boot. This passage shows how the pervasive patterns of sexism and petty cruelty Wilkins chooses to perpetuate in his relationship with Rosalind contribute to her desire to isolate herself from him, creating a vicious cycle in which both of their research is hindered, stunted, and prevented from reaching its full potential. Wilkins is frustrated with Rosalind’s methods—but as he goes behind her back, discounts her contributions and findings, and steals her glory for himself perhaps in an attempt to force her to give in to him, he only isolates her further.

At the height of his frustration with Rosalind, Wilkins seeks out the company of an old friend, Francis Crick, and Crick’s new research partner, the headstrong young scientist James Watson. As he vents to his male colleagues about his anger toward Rosalind, Watson and Crick chime in and begin discussing Rosalind in sexist, antisemitic terms. At the height of the men’s cruelty, Don Caspar—Rosalind’s soon-to-be assistant—steps in to defend her, explaining the ways in which the men’s scientific training has caused them to think in narrow, crude ways. These three men’s repeated verbal cruelty towards Rosalind causes them to think of her as an enemy or a rival rather than an intelligent colleague. Their treatment of her causes her to isolate herself from them further, which only fuels their vitriol toward her—and their feelings that she should, perhaps, be more grateful just for a seat at the table. These pervasive and destructive patterns ultimately result in Wilkins’ betrayal of Rosalind, allowing Watson and Crick to piggyback off of her hard work and claim credit for her ideas and breakthroughs, a mystery the play endeavors to solve by examining all sides of it.

In this passage, Rosalind Franklin and her research assistant, the young and eager Ray Gosling, have just developed a photo they’ve recently taken with their X-ray machine. It is the 51st photograph of DNA they’ve taken—and little do they know that it will be remembered throughout history as an infamous object which provided humanity with the first glimpse of DNA’ structure. As Rosalind and Ray stare at the photograph, Ray has an inkling of what it is the photo reveals—and though Rosalind does too, she insists on downplaying its importance, keeping it in a desk drawer, and hiding it from Maurice Wilkins. As Rosalind privately delves into memoir in this monologue delivered as an aside to the audience, she reveals the reasoning behind her desire to keep the groundbreaking photograph private for now. As a woman in science, she knows that she “must never be wrong.” In other words, she can’t risk losing her already-tenuous credibility within her sexist and antisemitic community. This passage explains a lot of the reasoning behind Rosalind’s desire to keep her research close to the chest, work in isolation, and take her time delivering the results of her work—things that frustrate and anger her colleagues as they encourage her to collaborate, speed up, and participate more fully in the “race” to uncover the structure of DNA.

After the discovery of what Photograph 51 may hold, Rosalind makes the controversial decision to put it away in a drawer and keep her findings from her research partner, Maurice Wilkins. Rosalind knows that if the photograph contains nothing and she is wrong about its potential, she’ll be laughed at and shunned. But she also knows that if it holds the key to DNA’s structure, it might be taken from her by Wilkins and passed off as his own achievement. When Wilkins walks in on Rosalind and Gosling resolving to celebrate, he wants to know what there is to celebrate—and when Rosalind refuses to tell him, an ideological fight ensues.

This passage contains the secret to the animosity between Wilkins and Rosalind, as does the scene directly preceding it. Rosalind has ways of moving through the world and conducting her work that are designed to protect her tenuous position in the scientific community—methods that Wilkins cannot understand, and that Rosalind is loath to share. They can never step into one another’s shoes and see things from the other’s point of view, and this tension and frustration poisons their working relationship and their personal estimations of one another. Rosalind resents Wilkins for not understanding her (or even trying to), and Wilkins resents Rosalind for behaving in a way which confounds him. As a result, they continue to misunderstand and discount the other, making fruitful collaboration an impossibility.

Francis Crick has been working hurriedly and tirelessly alongside his partner, James Watson, to repeatedly model and attempt to discern the structure of DNA. The two men have been devoted to winning the “race” they’re in with their other colleagues in England and around the world, and they harbor dreams of fame, recognition, and lifelong security should their endeavor be a success. In this passage, however, Crick stops to breathe for a moment and concedes that he’s confused about the goals and merits of their breakneck race. The men have been struggling to understand how Rosalind could possibly resist throwing her entire life into the race and devoting every moment to getting ahead. And in this passage, Crick at last begins to understand that perhaps there is more to life than coming in first. Perhaps the desire for success and recognition, he’s coming to realize, is foolish or fruitless—perhaps, he concedes, Rosalind understood something about the nature of time, fate, and life that he and Watson never did.

In this passage, Wilkins, frustrated by Rosalind’s closed-mouth approach to sharing her research and her unwillingness to collaborate, visits Cambridge to vent his anger to their colleagues Watson and Crick.

Watson is eager for Wilkins to share the details of Rosalind’s vexing behavior for his own amusement, while Crick is “actually worried” about Wilkins’s mental state and stunted professional life. This illustrates the differences between Watson, who is more focused on professional success, and Crick, who is more focused on personal values. Of course, Watson and Crick are both motivated by the desire for professional acclaim and glory—and Wilkins is too. But in highlighting a discrepancy between Watson and Crick, the play suggests that in a cutthroat environment like the scientific research community, there is always tension between the personal and the professional. Wilkins, who (like Watson and Crick) dreams of professional glory, turns to the likeminded pair out of frustration with Rosalind. Rosalind is more interested in the thrill of her work and the fulfillment she gets from making discoveries that could help people—but she doesn’t leap to gloat about her findings or share them with the wider scientific community.

Wilkins, however, cannot understand the societal barriers—namely sexism and antisemitism—that have led Rosalind to be guarded about to her work. As a result, he insensitively gossips about her behind her back and even shares her work without her permission. He’s unaware that Watson and Crick are still working on DNA research, and that sharing Rosalind’s X-ray photo of DNA (the titular Photograph 51) with them will lead to Watson, Crick, and Wilkins winning the Nobel Prize without Rosalind receiving her due credit. Rather than patiently waiting for Rosalind to share her findings with him or attempting to understand the intentions behind her peculiar methods, Wilkins unintentionally betrays her to their rivals. This is a testament to how differences in values and in personal experience—Wilkins has no idea what it’s like to experience sexism or antisemitism, after all—can drive a wedge in professional relationships.

In this passage, Ziegler allows her characters to step outside of time and space and address one another directly as they confront the betrayals, failures, and insufficiencies of their personal and professional relationships. As Watson and Crick essentially steal ideas from Rosalind’s careful research, Wilkins—who has, up to this point, had few qualms about sharing her materials with them—is at last able to see that they’re being cruel and unfair. Previously, he wasn’t even aware that Watson and Crick were still working on DNA research, so he didn’t suspect that they had an ulterior motive. But here, he calls them out on their repeated infringements of Rosalind’s work. Outside of the action, separated from the events that occurred in his lifetime, he is able to see how unfair the situation was all along—and how profoundly the deck was stacked against himself and Rosalind for a multitude of reasons, Watson and Crick’s self-serving ambition being one of them. The forces of time are working against Wilkins and Rosalind, but largely because of Wilkins’s own actions, which he now appears to regret.

In this passage, Maurice Wilkins walks in on Rosalind sitting in the laboratory late at night, puzzling over Photograph 51 and attempting to discern its meaning. Rosalind expresses her frustration with the photo, at which point Wilkins offers to help her—if only she’ll open up to him about her thoughts. “For a moment,” their assistant Gosling observes from the sidelines, the possibility that the two scientists might put aside their pride, their resentments, and their fears and at last collaborate in pursuit of a shared goal hangs in the air—but it dissipates as Rosalind turns Wilkins down, unknowingly making a move that will forever impede them from winning the race to uncover the structure of DNA. This passage is significant because it ties in with so many of the play’s themes: the ways in which human choices and actions unknowingly turn the tides of fate and chance, the fickle and unforgiving nature of time, and the tension between the desire to live one’s life (and do one’s work) in isolation versus the need to collaborate, share, and commune with other individuals. Rosalind and Wilkins have, in this passage, one final chance to turn the tides of fate, but neither of them seizes it, and instead their failure to win the race is forever sealed.

In this scene, two different locations—and two very different happenings—are highlighted simultaneously. In Cambridge, Crick and Watson finalize their new model of DNA, which they’ve built using research cribbed from Rosalind’s lab. Back in London, Rosalind, who has finally consented to have dinner with her new research assistant, Don Caspar, experiences intense abdominal pain, which she’ll soon learn is due to a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. While Watson and Crick unfairly uncover the secret of life, Rosalind’s life begins coming to a swift and unfair end. There are thematic and circumstantial similarities to be found between the two scenes, even as, ironically, all of Rosalind’s work to ascertain the origins of life end in her death. Wilkins, distraught and overwhelmed by the cruel twists of fate he’s witnessing, steps forward to comment upon the cruel loneliness science offers—providing answers to those who don’t deserve them while denying any sense of logic or fairness to those who have been pursuing truth and transcendence for so long.

In the midst of her battle with ovarian cancer, which has taken the form of two large tumors, one in each ovary, Rosalind leaves the hospital in order to return to her laboratory at King’s College London and continue work—even though she’s ill, and even though Watson and Crick have already won the DNA “race.” Maurice Wilkins is surprised to see Rosalind back at work and asks her what she’s doing there. In response, Rosalind grimly states that there are still things she wants to accomplish before she dies, and then laments the frail, doomed nature of the human body. Wilkins states that bodies—and lives—are “like grandfather clocks,” thus admitting to his own anxieties about the inevitability and terror of time. The ways in which time serves as humanity’s enemy are thematically at play throughout the entire drama—but only now, as it draws to the close, do two of its characters outrightly lament the fact that time has bested them.

In this brief passage, Rosalind thinks about the what-ifs of her life. Her male colleagues, acting as a kind of chorus, step forward to enumerate her regrets.

One reading of this passage is that Rosalind’s colleagues (Gosling, Watson, Crick, and Caspar) are offering up their honest guesses as to how Rosalind might have attained professional glory. But another interpretation is that the men are somehow channeling Rosalind’s own curiosities about what she might have done differently over the course of her life, and how different choices along the way might have affected the outcome of her life.

Up until this point, Rosalind’s male colleagues have been largely unsympathetic about what they perceive as her professional and personal shortcomings—yet now, their comments read as compassionate and regretful. The men, whose treatment of Rosalind has ranged from outrightly cruel to simply insufficiently kind or helpful, now concede that there were several barriers (many of which they themselves created or contributed to) that stood between her and the professional renown that her work deserved. In other words, the men seem to finally empathize with the struggles Rosalind has faced as a Jewish woman who’s been held back by sexism and antisemitism. They acknowledge both the concrete circumstances and uncontrollable forces (like Rosalind’s cancer diagnosis) that contributed to her personal and professional failures—and they collectively join her in lamenting the hardships that held her back for so many years.

In the play’s final moments, Wilkins and Rosalind return to the one topic which allowed them to share some common ground during their uneasy partnership at King’s College. Suspended in time and space. Wilkins and Rosalind discuss The Winter’s Tale and their differing opinions on its fantastical ending offer a metaphysical reading of their own story. While Wilkins believes that Leontes’s grief and contrition succeeds in summoning his wife Hermione back from the dead, Rosalind believes Leontes merely “projects life” in order to ease his guilty conscience, then ultimately winds up alone in the end. This passage reveals Wilkins’ enduring desire to somehow right the wrongs he leveled against Rosalind during her life—he treated her as badly and unfairly as Leontes treated his queen, and now must face the fact that he cannot bring Rosalind back from the dead, atone for his sins against her, or rewrite their painful shared history.