Time is of the Essence: The Centrality of Time in Science Plays and the Cultural Implications

Abstract

Time is of the Essence: The Centrality of Time in Science Plays and the Cultural Implications examines how time operates within the narrative and structure of science plays. Combining analysis of play texts and production critiques with phenomenological theories of time and embodiment, and also exploring related theories about time in physics and philosophy, I extrapolate what science plays may illuminate about our cultural relationship to science because of how we experience time—both in and out of the theatre. In the dissertation I investigate three groups of science plays: 1) contemporary plays that display time in innovative ways, such as Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993), Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 (2011), Shelagh Stephenson’s An Experiment with an Air Pump (2000), and Nick Payne’s Constellations (2012); 2) plays about the atomic bomb that presented apprehensions mankind made a scientific device to end time as we knew it, seen in Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne’s Wings Over Europe (1927), Arch Oboler’s Night of the Auk (1956), Lorraine Hansberry’s What Use Are Flowers? (1969), Arthur Kopit’s The End of the World (1984), and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (1998); and 3) plays about climate change that demonstrate how mankind may be running out of time to change the course of events, including Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner, and Jack Thorne’s Greenland (2011), Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London (2010), and Stephen Emmott’s Ten Billion (2012). I compare these plays to other representations of science in film, museums, and literature, contrasting the phenomenological experiences and positioning theatre as a rare, time-oriented art that can reveal important scientific ideas. By investigating science plays, I argue that theatre, because of its own phenomenological and temporal particularities, enables us to examine how we as a culture view our scientific past, present, and future in ways few other experiences can compare.