Love lessons

On 9 May 2002, the audience in the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House, London, was treated to a series of dazzling explorations of the value of life, the mystery of love, the uncertainties of science and the tight spaces in which life-and-death decisions are made - all through the eyes of 11-16 year olds.

The occasion was the Wellcome Trust’s National Festival of Drama - the culmination of the Science Centrestage initiative, launched in October 2001 as part of Science Year. Some 100 schools took part in the initiative, which aimed to encourage secondary school students to explore the wider implications of science through drama. As the National Festival revealed, the challenge was taken up with gusto, as students experimented with a multitude of dramatic forms and tackled a host of critical issues.

The initiative kicked off with a series of regional workshops in October 2001, attended by professional playwrights, actors, drama tutors and Trust-funded research scientists. Students and teachers had the opportunity to update themselves on scientific advances, debate the related issues, and pick up some tips on composing and performing a short dramatic work from the experts. Back at school, participants then received ongoing support from local theatre professionals and scientists in creating and rehearsing a 20-minute play encapsulating some of the social and ethical dilemmas created by advances in biomedicine.

The resulting works were first performed at ten regional festivals in March 2002, in a variety of theatres and science centres. The depth of thought that had gone into these pieces - the sensitive and balanced handling of highly complex issues, the seamless interjection of comedy to lighten scenes dealing with sickness, death, and agonising moral choices, and the all-round high standards of artistic excellence and scientific accuracy - won considerable praise from audiences across the country.

From the regional festivals, six plays were showcased at the Science Centrestage National Festival, compered by TV presenter Philippa Forrester, with speeches from Sir Dominic Cadbury, Chairman of the Wellcome Trust, and Richard Dawkins. Performances were selected to represent a wide variety of subject matter, type of school and geographical spread.

New life

‘Jodie’, by St Bernard’s Catholic High School in Cumbria, dramatises the ethical and emotional dilemmas surrounding embryonic selection. Jodie, a Cumbrian farmer’s daughter, will die from leukaemia unless her mother chooses to bring another child into the world, especially selected from a number of fertilised eggs to have the perfect bone marrow match that could save her life. Since embryonic selection is not available on the NHS, the financial implications are devastating - and there are no guarantees the transplant will be 100 per cent successful.

Central to the play is the question of how much value we place on human life - and at what point a life becomes human. Memorably, at one point the doctor reassures Jodie’s mother that "a fertilised egg is not a human" - a statement that is counter-balanced by the disturbing image of Jodie’s mother drowning her unused fertilised eggs, one-by-one, saying a poignant goodbye to each potential child as she pushes its head underwater. The play also explores the impact of the wrenching decisions on all members of Jodie’s family, struggling to cope with the hand fate has dealt them.

Future perfect

‘Another Life’, by Ashcroft High School in Luton, investigates a different aspect of genetic testing: screening of embryos for a genetic condition, such as cystic fibrosis, with the option of abortion if the test proves positive.

This play questions the concept that a 'healthy' life is the only valid life. Despite the distress and limitations inflicted by her illness - including a life expectancy of just 40 years and the need to take a multitude of pills and have two sessions of physiotherapy every day - a teenage girl with cystic fibrosis goes to school like everyone else, has friends, a boyfriend and plans for the future. To all intents and purposes she is an active, happy teenager.

Yet had her parents known of her condition before her birth, she may never have been born - a fact brought into even sharper focus when her mother falls pregnant again and has the fetus screened for cystic fibrosis. By looking at the issues through the eyes of someone actually with a genetic disease, the play is both thought-provoking and at times deeply moving.

Crystal balls

‘Love Science’, by Villiers High School in Southall, takes genetic testing a step further to look at DNA profiling for potential future spouses.

This experimental, playful, highly sophisticated piece shows us a drama student and a science student falling in love. The result: a cocktail of Shakespearean speeches and references threaded with scientific terminology and present-day vernacular. "I want to penetrate your cell membranes and swim in your cytoplasm," declares Romeo to his Juliet, while at home, Juliet’s Hindu mother observes that genetic profiles are the future of dating and wonders whether there is a gene for good business sense. In a vivid and unusual scene, making imaginative use of a supermarket trolley, interpreting a DNA sample for ‘marriageability’ is likened to tarot reading. Ultimately, the play celebrates the unpredictability of life - genes may be important, but the future depends on much more than our genetic inheritance.

Heartbeat

Xenotransplantation is the subject matter of ‘Beat It?’ by the Marist Convent Senior School in Berkshire. The play tells the story of Harriet, a teenage girl in need of a heart transplant, who, unable to secure a human organ, opts for a pig’s heart instead.

The core dilemma is again an ethical one: is a human life intrinsically more valuable than an animal life? The predicament is compounded by the fact that the operation - even if it is successful and the heart is not rejected by the recipient’s body, for which there is no guarantee - is only likely to give her a maximum of two extra years of life. There is also the potential threat of new viruses spreading from pigs to humans through organ transplants.

In an inventive performance enriched with music and dance, the seriousness of the issues and the difficulty of Harriet's choice are offset by some wonderful comic moments, including the gleeful voice of the pig’s heart itself, as it is freed from its original body in the operating theatre, shouting "Whoopee! – I’m a pig’s heart and I’m seeing the world!" And at one point, the cast even manage the unlikely feat of transforming themselves into a variety of exercise machines in a gym.

Thought control

The devastating impact of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on lives, weighed against the fear of changing personality through drug therapy, is the painful choice to be made in ‘It Could Be You’, by the Hurst Community School in Hampshire.

The play demonstrates the destructiveness of ADHD, showing how a child with the disorder makes himself deeply unpopular among his peers and struggles to concentrate and learn at school, while at home he disrupts and exhausts his family.

Once he is prescribed Ritalin, however, although his behaviour improves, his identity is lost: he is portrayed as a masked puppet on strings whose every move is controlled by his mother and teachers. While fully recognising all aspects of the conundrum, the play asks whether a diagnosis of ADHD is the right one, or whether he is really suffering from depression. Does Ritalin only modify behaviour or does it change personality? Again, the impressive combination of music and innovative choreography creates a stunning visual and aural experience.

Do they mean us?

In a series of vivid and occasionally hilarious sketches, songs and dances, ‘Science Thinks? Science Stinks?’ by St Genevieve’s High School in Belfast dramatises the scientific process and pokes gentle fun at scientists’ attempts to communicate with the public. "The future is cooperation and communication," states a scientist pompously. "Let’s talk," comes the cheerful response from a member of the public. People are keen to know more about what science will mean for them, the play suggests, but technical language and scientific conventions can be distinctly alienating.

In all the pieces, superb performances did justice to the excellence of the writing - straight roles were acted with power, empathy and conviction, humorous roles with panache and relish - while dexterous use of music (much of it composed by students themselves) and choreography provided the final polish. The amount of fun students had is testified by the fact that many schools staged repeat performances, after the regional festivals, in school halls and local theatres. Certainly judging from the almost palpable adrenaline buzz - among the audience and performers alike - at the Royal Opera House, Science Centrestage had achieved its chief aim of firing young people with a heated interest in science and the intriguingly complex ethical conundrums it spawns.

Science Year was conceived by the Department for Education and Skills and launched in September 2001, with the aim of encouraging secondary school students to consider bioscience, technology and engineering as subjects and career options. The Science Centrestage project was managed by the Oxford Trust on behalf of the Wellcome Trust.

See also

• Science Centrestage: Six plays showcased at the National Festival of Drama