The scientist on the stage: A survey

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

Volumn 27, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 173-183

  Orthofer, M A ^a  

^a Complete Review ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041918865     PISSN: 03080188     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/030801802225003286     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. ARISTOTLE: 'Poetics', (trans. Stephen Halliwell); 1999, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. The 'Poetics' treats only tragedy. Aristotle's writings on comedy are lost, but nothing suggests that he would have found much of a place for science in comedies either.
2. ARISTOPHANES: 'Clouds', in 'Aristophanes I', (trans. Benjamin Bickley Rogers), 273; 1924, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. The Greek term was coined by Aristophanes.
3. ARISTOPHANES: 'Clouds', p. 275 (see Ref. 2).
4. THOMAS SHADWELL: 'The virtuoso', 47; 1966, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press
5. ALBERT S. BORGMAN: 'Thomas Shadwell', 169; 1928, New York, NY, New York University Press.
6. ALBERT S. BORGMAN: 'Thomas Shadwell', 168-173 (see Ref. 5).
7. THOMAS SHADWELL: 'The virtuoso', 112 (see Ref. 4).
8. THOMAS SHADWELL: 'The virtuoso', 119 (see Ref. 4).
9. J. W. VON GOETHE: 'Faust', (trans. Walter Arndt), 12; 2001, New York, NY, Norton.
10. FRANÇOIS PONSARD: 'Galilée'; 1867, Paris, Michel-Lévy frères.
11. LEONID ANDREYEV: 'To the stars', Poet Lore, 1907, 4, 417-467.
12. Andreyev and Gorky had originally intended to collaborate on a play on this subject, but then wrote these separate works.
13. MAXIM GORKY: 'Children of the sun', (trans. Stephen Mulrine), 101; 1999, London, Nick Hern.
14. MAXIM GORKY: 'Children of the sun', 56 (see Ref. 13).
15. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Werke, Band 5', (ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, and K. D. Müller); 1997, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp. This volume from the collected works includes all three versions of the play, as well as extensive annotations and supplementary material. For an English version see BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', (trans. John Willett); 1994, New York, NY, Arcade, which includes a translation of the final version, notes and variants on all three versions, and the complete text in the translation by Charles Laughton.
16. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Werke, Band 5', (ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, and K. D. Müller); 1997, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp. This volume from the collected works includes all three versions of the play, as well as extensive annotations and supplementary material. For an English version see BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', (trans. John Willett); 1994, New York, NY, Arcade, which includes a translation of the final version, notes and variants on all three versions, and the complete text in the translation by Charles Laughton.
17. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 125; 1994, New York, NY, Arcade.
18. Brecht spent his last years in the German Democratic Republic, but he never became a citizen of the new state, preferring the safety - and potential escape route - afforded by an Austrian passport.
19. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 125 (see Ref. 16).
20. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 192, 262, 109 (see Ref. 16).
21. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 110 (see Ref. 16). This is made even more explicit in the first version of the play, when Galileo answers Virginia, saying (p. 193) 'That's good. Then he'll be able to see his way.' Note that Brecht uses the word 'hell' in the German original, and that this is translated (correctly) as 'bright' in Laughton's American version. It is unclear why Willett did not defer to the translation approved by Brecht and chose a different term. If Brecht had meant 'clear' he would have used the German word 'klar' - and surely would have had Laughton use 'clear'.
22. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 113 (see Ref. 16). But note that the American version does not end on such a bright note (p. 265).
23. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 108-109 (see Ref. 16). See also p. 261. The first version does not have such a dire warning.
24. CHARLES MORGAN: 'The burning glass', 82; 1953, London, Macmillan.
25. WILLIAM GOLDING: 'The brass butterfly'; 1958, London, Faber.
26. ARCHIBALD MACLEISH: 'Herakles', 13; 1967, Boston, MA, Houghton Mifflin.
27. HANS HENNY JAHNN: 'Die Trümmer des Gewissens', in 'Dramen II', 749-943; 1965, Frankfurt am Main, Europäische Verlagsanstalt.
28. FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT: 'The physicists', (trans. James Kirkup), 75; 1964, New York, NY, Grove Press.
29. FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT: 'The physicists', 89 (see Ref. 27).
30. CARL ZUCKMAYER: 'Das kalte Licht', in 'Gesammelte Werke IV - Dramen', 351-480; 1960, Frankfurt am Main, S. Fischer.
31. SIEGFRIED MEWS: 'Carl Zuckmayer', 97; 1981, Boston, MA, Twayne.
32. The world premiere of the play was in Zurich in 1943 (where the 1938/9 Copenhagen version was staged), followed by the 1947 production of the Charles Laughton translation in Los Angeles.
33. HEINAR KIPPHARDT: 'In the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer', (trans. Ruth Speirs); 1968, New York, NY, Hill and Wang.
34. For the 1965 East German premiere at Brecht's old theatre, the Berliner Ensemble, the play was even deliberately staged using much of the set design from the famous production of 'Life of Galileo', a reference that must have been obvious to most of the audience. (See HEINAR KIPPHARDT: 'In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer: Ein Stück und seine Geschichte', 242; 1987, Reinbeck, Rowohlt.)
35. HEINAR KIPPHARDT: 'In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer', 125-127 (see Ref. 32).
36. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Life of Galileo', 107-109 (see Ref. 16).
37. HEINAR KIPPHARDT: 'In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer', 159-179 (see Ref. 33).
38. 'Einstein sieht seine besten Schüler sich von der Frage des Warum zur Frage des Wie wenden' (BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Leben des Einstein', in 'Werke, Band 10', (ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, and K. D. Müller), 984; 1997, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp).
39. 'Fortschritt in der Erkenntnis der Natur/Bei Stillstand in der Erkenntnis der Gesellschaft/Wird tödlich' (BERTOLT BRECHT: 'Leben des Einstein', 985 (see Ref. 37)).
40. KARL MICKEL: 'Einstein', in 'Einstein/Nausikaa', 5-39; 1974, Berlin, Rotbuch. For a fuller discussion of the work see M. A. ORTHOFER: 'Humanistic failings: Karl Mickel's Einstein', complete review Quarterly, 2001, 2, (1) at www.complete-review.com/quarterly/vol2/ issue1/mickele.htm.
41. KARL MICKEL: 'Einstein', in 'Einstein/Nausikaa', 5-39; 1974, Berlin, Rotbuch. For a fuller discussion of the work see M. A. ORTHOFER: 'Humanistic failings: Karl Mickel's Einstein', complete review Quarterly, 2001, 2, (1) at www.complete-review.com/quarterly/vol2/ issue1/mickele.htm.
42. The play has never been produced or published. For a good overview of the work see J. FLEMING: 'Stoppard's theatre', 66-81; 2001, Austin, TX, University of Texas Press.
43. TOM STOPPARD: 'Hapgood', 47; 1988, London, Faber.
44. JOHN FLEMING: 'A talk with Tom Stoppard', Theatre Insight, 1993, 10, 25.
45. TOM STOPPARD: 'Hapgood'; 1994, London, Faber.
46. TOM STOPPARD: 'Hapgood', in 'Tom Stoppard plays: 5', 483-593; 1999, London, Faber.
47. TOM STOPPARD: 'Arcadia', 37; 1993, London, Faber.
48. When Thomasina first mentions the idea of a deterministic formula like Laplace's demon, Septimus tells her he believes no one has conceived of it before. In a present day scene Valentine later recalls that 'there was someone, forget his name, 1820s' who had come up with this concept of a deterministic universe. In the last scene, Septimus brings 'a prize essay of the Scientific Academy in Paris' which 'demonstrates the equation of the propagation of heat in a solid body', a reference to Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier. Again, the name remains unmentioned.
49. TOM STOPPARD: 'Arcadia', 61 (see Ref. 45).
50. SHELAGH STEPHENSON: 'An experiment with an air pump'; 1998, London, Methuen.
51. HUGH WHITEMORE: 'Breaking the code'; 1987, New York, NY, Samuel French.
52. CONSTANCE CONGDON: 'No mercy', in 'Tales of the lost Formicans', 77-120; 1994, New York, NY, Theatre Communications Group.
53. PETER PARNELL: 'QED'; 2002, New York, NY, Applause Theatre Book Publishers.
54. TIMBERLAKE WERTENBAKER: 'After Darwin'; 1998, London, Faber.
55. CARL DJERASSI and ROALD HOFFMANN: 'Oxygen'; 2001, Weinheim, Wiley-VCH.
56. MICHAEL FRAYN: 'Copenhagen', 4; 2000, New York, NY, Anchor Books.
57. MICHAEL FRAYN: 'Copenhagen revisited', New York Review of Books, 2002, 49, (5), 22.
58. FRIEDRICH DÜRRENMATT: 'The physicists', 94-95 (see Ref. 27).
59. BERTOLT BRECHT: 'A short organum for the theatre', in 'Brecht on theatre', (trans. John Willett), 185; 1964, New York, NY, Hill and Wang.
60. PAUL FEYERABEND: 'Let's make movies', in 'Knowledge, science and relativism', (ed. John Preston), 192-199; 1999, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.