Pasadena Star
The Sequence' is entertainment in name of science
By Michelle J. Mills, Staff Writer
THE SEQUENCE
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Saturday Oct. 11 through Nov. 9
Main Stage, Boston Court Performing Arts Center, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena
$32
(626) 683-6883
The Theatre @ Boston Court will present the world premiere of Paul Mullin's "The Sequence" beginning Saturday. Directed by John Langs and starring Hugo Armstrong, Karrie Hrause and William Slayers, the play charts the real-life race between scientists Craig Venter and Francis Collins to sequence the human genome.
Collins, according to the story, was leading the government-funded public study, "going slow, but sure like the tortoise," Mullin said. "And then this renegade researcher, Craig Venter, from the private side decided he was going to do it better, faster, cheaper, and he got into the race and lit it on fire."
The play is akin to a Shakespearean comedy, as it reveals the backstabbing and double-crossing that went on, as well as the funny things that happened, but everything ultimately worked out in the end with both sides able to declare victory.
Mullin lives in Seattle and has had his works performed in Los Angeles, Seattle and New York. He has written several films, but is best known for his play, "Louis Slotin Sonanta," about a scientist at Los Alamos who, while working on a plutonium bomb core, was accidently exposed to radiation; he died nine days later.
When Mullin learned about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and its commissioning program for plays about science, scientists and technology, he sent in the idea for a work about artificial intelligence. The organization responded, asking him instead to write about the human genome. He began researching the project and discovered a story waiting to be told.
It took Mullin more than a year to write the draft for "The Sequence" and he worked on it for five years in between other projects. He is still tweaking it even now as it comes to the stage and he is also continuing his research.
"It's always developing," Mullin said. "Craig Venter is still out there, as is Francis Collins, they're still out there doing things. The race, to some extent, is over, but they're both still doing very interesting things and I like to keep on top of that."
The biggest challenge with "The Sequence" was giving the audience a firm understanding of the science without boring them with lengthy explanations. Mullin's other challenge was capturing a huge story in the small format of the theater.
His effort has reaped interesting rewards, including seeing the play read at biotech conferences and having the opportunity to meet many scientists involved in the human genome project, including Francis Collins.
"I love talking to people who are smarter than me and pretty much anybody who is associated with this race is smarter than me," Mullin said.
He said that three major scientific developments during the last 50 years stand out as impacting our lives the most: the atomic bomb, the computer and the human genome project. Of the trio, Mullin said the human genome will change our lives longterm and in more unimaginable ways.
"You are literally changing what it means to be a human being." Mullin said. "The bomb had the capacity to wipe us out, the computer had the capacity to connect us in ways we've never been connected before, but the human genome and the knowledge associated with it has the capacity to literally, not figuratively, change who we are."
He wonders how the knowledge we have been handed will affect our decisions in the future. Citing musician Woody Guthrie, who suffered from Huntington's Disease, Mullin points out that had there been a test for the affliction in utero at the time of his conception, we may have never known Guthrie's genius nor have the beloved song, "This Land is Your Land."
"When you start playing God, where do you stop? I think we really leap quickly before we think a lot in this country," Mullin said.
Today we can test for Huntington's Disease, as well as Down Syndrome and many other diseases, but is it ethical to abort the "burdened" child? Mullin's stance is to deal with the hand you are dealt, still, he believes that humanity must address this issue.
"The reason why I have been so excited about this play and about this story is that to some extent we can protest nuclear weapons and we can bemoan technology, it's kind of separate from us," Mullin said. "But these decisions about disease and humanity are real, they're right up in our faces and the more we talk about them, the more it's going to make us better people."
Mullin encourages scientists who focus on their work and leave the morality and ethics to others to rethink their position, as genetics, technology and other advances are so complex that the only people who can understand the longterm effects are those who understand the science. Scientists need to become part of the conversation, he said.
Francis Collins is one scientist who's talking. After his work on the human genome project, Collins has been looking into these larger ethical and moral questions.
"Hopefully, people like him will help us understand and the democracy will figure out the right way to go," Mullin said.
Arroyo Monthly
The Great Race
Published on 10-01-2008
Paul Mullin's new play, "The Sequence," takes audiences along on the thrilling dash to be the first scientific researcher to map the human genome.
By Jana Monji
What may have been one of the greatest races in human history — with competitors in China, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — wasn't fast. It didn't whiz by at the speed of light, nor even with the rapid pinging of a teenager's text-message fest. It took a decade for the winners to reach the finish line — but what a finish line. The goal was nothing less than a historic milestone in scientific discovery: mapping the human genome.
Such dramas in the world of science don't often cross over to the world of the arts, whose denizens consider much that goes on in laboratories a little dry. But as Paul Mullin demonstrates in his new play, "The Sequence," the Human Genome Project (HGP), as the international research effort was known, involved "true, live people who are amazingly wild and arrogant, deeply flawed human beings," the playwright says. The three-person drama has its world premiere at Pasadena's Boston Court on Oct. 11.
"The Sequence" recounts a classic tortoise-and-hare rivalry but adds some unexpected twists and turns. And making art that imitates life can have some unusual consequences: Take the April 2005 reading at Virginia's George Mason University, where one of the scientists portrayed onstage sauntered in to hear how his theatrical doppelganger was doing.
The guest was Francis Collins, whom you might call the tortoise in this race. The slow-and-steady Collins led the HGP as the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institute of Health, a post he left in August. As the Seattle-based playwright recalls, "He shows up a little bit late. The only seats left are in the front row — in front of the actor who was playing Francis Collins." Collins, who was face-to-face with his stage self, "was very gracious after the play and agreed to sit onstage for the talkback."
As a government scientist, Collins was committed to allowing the worldwide scientific community free access to the project's genomic discoveries in order to advance research on the connection between genes and disease. His competitor was former NIH biologist Craig Venter, who'd founded the for-profit research company Celera Genomics. Using a controversial technique known as shotgun sequencing, Venter was racing to be the first to map the human genome, so that he could control a database of genomic data and collect a fee for access. That outraged groups involved with the HGP, who redoubled their efforts to ensure the findings would be freely available.
So who won? In 1990, both Collins and Venter joined President Clinton in announcing the mapping of the human genome. But Venter's victory was ultimately hollow. He was pressured into sharing his data and credit with the HGP's international consortium. And when he failed to collect royalties on the data, Celera fired him in 2002.
Theater audiences might not associate such scientific endeavors with stage fare, but the story's grounding in fact actually amps up the dramatic tension, says Mullin, 40. "What scientists do in the 20th and 21st centuries has a deeper impact on our culture than ever before. [Scientific endeavors can] really be a life-and-death matter that affect all of us."
Mullin isn't himself a scientist, but he is the son of two: His father was a physicist and his mother, a biologist. Raised in Maryland, Mullin dropped out of the University of Maryland, which he'd entered on an acting scholarship. He moved to New York in 1988 to pursue acting, but in 1990, he settled in Seattle because "it was really exploding as an alternative theater town."
Mullin had already begun writing plays about a wide range of subjects, from the "Beowulf" character Grendel to a 1942 painting by Jacob Lawrence titled "Pool Parlor." Twenty-five of his plays have been performed Off Broadway and at regional theaters around the country. Five earlier productions have been staged in Los Angeles, including "Louis Slotin Sonata," which won an L.A. Drama Critics Award after its 1999 premiere by the Circle X Theatre Company. The play examined the story of an experimental physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, famous for its role in the development of the atomic bomb. In 1946, Slotin inadvertently exposed himself to a fatal dose of radiation and died nine days later. Mullin's play, which imagines the scientist's physical and emotional torment during those final days, was read by invitation to scientists at Los Alamos (who mostly hated it) and at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, where they gave it a standing ovation. But a mixed review in 2001 from the New York Times — which said that "as a historical episode suitable for dramatizing, you can't do much better" but also sniffed that there was "something show-offy and distracting about it" — doomed its future.
Mullin regards the Los Alamos reading "as one of the most exciting, nerve-wracking events of my life. A lot of scientists were really angry at me." The play includes a scene where Joseph Mengele compares the Nazis' Final Solution to the explosion of one atomic bomb. "They found it really offensive." Scientists from generations that followed Slotin's unleashed a storm of criticism until "a kindly old man stood up and said, ÔI was there. I knew Louis Slotin and I think he would have liked this play.' I had some doubts about the legitimacy of my work, but hearing from that old man, it made me feel a lot better about the play."
His current play, "The Sequence," was commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in collaboration with New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre in 2002. The Boston Court production will be directed by Los Angeles-based John Langs, who directed "Louis Slotin Sonata" in Seattle. "Paul's writing is an extraordinary mix of intellectual stimulation and good human story telling," Langs says. "He really brings it together and somehow I feel smarter after I leave the theater." With his latest endeavor, Mullin has discovered that writing about living people can be double-edged. "That night when I knew Francis Collins was coming to the meeting was perhaps more nerve-wracking than Los Alamos, " Mullin says but adds, "I get to meet some of the coolest people on earth."
The genome pioneers may be among Time Magazine's 100 most influential people on earth, but Mullin seeks to humanize them and portray them to audiences as people they can relate to. "All of us do what we do to get even, to get laid, to get famous," he says. His scientists aren't "objective persons who only do what they do for the great good of humanity. Scientists can be vicious, political, Machiavellian, arrogant and blind to their own faults—like characters from Shakespeare."
"The Sequence" begins previews Oct. 2, opens Oct. 11 and runs through Nov. 9. Performances are held at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets cost $17 for previews, $32 for regular performances and $27 for seniors and students. Boston Court is located at 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. For tickets, visit www.bostoncourt.com or call (626) 683-6883.
Pasadena Star News Blog
Larry Wilson: New projects are out of this world
By Larry Wilson, Staff Writer
Oct 08, 2008
Pasadena's X marks the spot of the intersection between art and science perhaps more prominently than anywhere else. Curators such as Art Center's Steve Nowlin and the Armory's Jay Belloli - formerly from that genius loci of science and art, Caltech's Baxter Gallery - have for decades been putting up shows, from "The Universe" to the recent two-man bazaar of works by Dick Feynman and Jerry Zorthian, that illustrate that intersection.
Now Nowlin and Pasadena Arts Council honcha Terry LeMoncheck are pushing the space-time continuum to bring together Art Center's Williamson Gallery, Caltech's Spitzer Science Center and North Mentor Avenue's Boston Court theater in a Big Bang, projects called OBSERVE and Deep Spaces as part of AxS: The Pasadena Arts and Science Initiative.
A year ago Nowlin got five prominent artists together with a group of Caltech astronomers and astrophysicists who peer into the outer deeps through the Spitzer Space Telescope. "We had a series of great meetings - the reality of the cosmos, the artists heard from the astronomers, is stranger than any fiction," Nowlin says.
Now artists Lita Albuquerque, Lynn Aldrich, Dan Goods, George Legrady and Daniel Wheeler are constructing five large-scale interactive installations at Art Center's Williamson Gallery commissioned for the project.
From 6 to 10 p.m. Friday as part of Art Weekend, there'll be an opening reception for the project at the gallery, 1700 Lida St.
And the Arts Council is collaborating with Boston Court to premiere Paul Mullin's play "The Sequence," a dramatization of the race between scientists Craig Venter and Francis Collins to map the human genome. The work grapples with the questions of public good and private profit that played out in that epic battle to figure out what literally makes up a human being at our core. It's also very, very funny - go to www.bostoncourt.com to see how and why, and for ticket information. "The Sequence" is in previews right now, and formally opens Saturday, running through Nov. 9. Tickets and info are also available by calling (626) 683-6883.
After the Friday, Oct. 17 performance, I'll be engaging playwright Mullin in conversation on the Boston Court stage about the places where science and art meet up.
"Science and art together are a lot more dynamic than just, well, photos of glaciers," says LeMoncheck of the Arts Council. "It's the left/right business - one half of the brain interpreting and running interference for the other."
She quotes Jonah Lehrer, author of "Proust Was a Neuroscientist": "Science needs art to fathom the mysterious. But art needs science so not everything IS a mystery."
At his blog, The Frontal Cortex, Lehrer quotes William James: "The stream of thought flows on; but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion."
Science and art are the places where we try to hold on to our thoughts to keep them from oblivion. Come join Pasadena as we go to some new Deep Spaces.
larry.wilson@sgvn.com
Public Editor Larry Wilson's blog is http://insidesocal.com/publiceye .
Los Angeles Times
By David Ng
Paul Mullin's "The Sequence," currently at The Theatre @ Boston Court, chronicles the race between two scientists to map the human genome. Drawn from real-world events, this flashy and ambitious new play spotlights an important scientific breakthrough but comes up more than a few chromosomes short of a coherent drama.
"The Sequence" is told through the eyes of an eager journalist (Karri Krause) who befriends the rival scientists as they embark on their research. Craig Venter (Hugo Armstrong) is the cocky chief executive of Celera, a start-up biotech firm using an unconventional method to dissect human DNA. His chief nemesis is Francis Collins (William Salyers), who is leading the federal government's mission to map the genome by employing a more conservative approach.
The play creates a compelling dialectic between the macho Venter and the nebbishy Collins. Their scenes together are sharply executed, mapping with precision the chasm between two men who can't stand each other personally but who can respect the other's intelligence.
Unfortunately, the play concentrates more on the nosy journalist than the scientists. The reporter, who serves as an audience surrogate, offers verbose, New Age-y translations of the scientists' nerdy discourse. Her constant commentary irritates and signals a distrust in the audience's ability to comprehend even the most rudimentary aspects of genetics.
"The Sequence" splices together too many subplots and tangents, resulting in a tangled mess of a narrative that director John Langs can't begin to make clear.
The frequent reliance on multimedia visual aids is likely to wear down the viewer's already overtaxed patience.
Backstage
October 16, 2008
By Dany Margolies
It's amazing how nobly brilliant yet painfully self-destructive we, a bag of complex molecules, can be. In Paul Mullin's science-themed play, the race to map the sequence of our DNA is the backdrop for professional jealousies and personal frailties. Stylishly and imaginatively realized by director John Langs and potently delivered by three fine actors, the story is part allegory, part real-life journalism. From the 1990s through the start of the new millennium, scientists Craig Venter and Francis Collins battled to be the first and best to sequence and identify our full set of genes. The stakes? Pride and medical breakthroughs. Mullin structures the play around a fictional series of interviews conducted by an also ambitious young journalist, Kellie Silverstein. He gets the science out of the way quickly and relatively painlessly, turning the explanation into a Sesame Street-style song-and-dance number and then a Vegas mini-extravaganza. Now free to focus on the personalities of the characters, Mullin explores our need for knowledge and power, as well as our reluctance to know too much of our fates. Karri Krause plays Silverstein, adeptly described by Venter as a Pulitzer-coveting ink monger but in Krause's hands a very self-assured yet vulnerable young woman. Silverstein returns the verbal favor by ensuring Venter is forever known as the Dark Prince of Biotech. As Hugo Armstrong plays him, he's abrasively charming enough to earn the sobriquet and yet absolutely and stunningly believable in Venter's stated goal of curing disease. William Salyers plays Collins: the born-again Christian scientist, slightly rumpled, possessed of a quiet sense of fair play, gently revealing the disappointment Collins feels over Venter's apparent narcissism. And as a bonus, the men look astoundingly like their real-life characters. One tiny quibble with the staging: Seated even within the center block of seats, we can see the actors backstage, awaiting entrances. On the other hand, it gives us a view of how deeply immersed in their work they are. They take not a peek at the audience, instead engaged as they prepare to step into their scenes. It's the audience's chance to glimpse divine spark.
Presented by and at the Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. Thu.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Oct. 11-Nov. 9. (626) 683-6883. www.bostoncourt.com.
LA CityBeat
By Don Shirley
The Sequence. From 1993 to 2001, the NIH scientist Francis Collins (Hugo Armstrong) and his private-sector counterpart Craig Venter (William Salyers) compete to map the human genome, until they're forced to work together by President Clinton. Playwright Paul Mullin has a history of dramatizing scientists (The Louis Slotin Sonata) and skips lightly through the science with ample visual aids in John Langs' staging. But the glamorous, fictitious reporter (Karri Krause), who sometimes loses her objectivity, feels like a transparent device designed to sex up material that might otherwise be deemed too abstruse. She's also an audience surrogate for the uncomprehending. Theatre@Boston Court, Pasadena. (626) 683-6883. bostoncourt.org. Closes Nov. 9.
EDGE Southwest Editor
by Trevor Thomas
Two questions grow out of The Sequence now receiving its world premiere at the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena. First, how does one get from an alphabet stew of biocompounds to something as wonderful and complex as "you?" And secondly, how does one craft compelling drama from twin strands of science lecture and a garden variety tale of male rivalry? The answer to both queries is: nobody knows.
Still, kudos to playwright Paul Mullin, director John Langs and the various artists and technical masters who brought this work to life for even attempting to make a play out of human genome mapping. Without question the subject matter is fascinating. It just doesn't translate into good drama.
Dazzling stage technology employing pinpoint slide projections, sound design, and gorgeous motion picture elements work tirelessly to explain to a lay audience the sequencing of adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine in a chromosome, the various methods of determining that sequencing, the nature of deoxyribonucleic acid and its subset mRNA, and even the capitalization of an IPO. To dramatize such complexity and give it a face, the playwright tries to focus his tale on the question of whether or not it's a good thing to know if one has inherited a devastating genetic trait: in this case a propensity for developing an especially virulent form of breast cancer.
To drive home the playwright's point, director and set designer have placed an incessantly ringing red telephone in the center of a white table dead center stage and surrounded it by a large white circle painted on the stage floor. The red and white bull's-eye design unfortunately makes one think of Target when one is not wishing somebody would just answer the damned phone before the entire two-hour intermission-less play has run its course.
Geneticists Francis Collins (William Salyers) and Craig Venter (Hugo Armstrong) waged a not-so-private war against one another during the 1990s in their race to be the first to publish a complete map of the human genome. Collins, through his government paid position with the National Institutes of Health, saw his work as part of a great human effort, a matter of global "cooperation" in the mode of the International Space Station. Venter saw his research as a business investment and founded Celera Genomics, a high flying biotech firm designed to profit by patenting his discoveries. That firm crashed, financially ruining Venter, when Collins managed to manipulate President Bill Clinton into siding with his open access model of this important genetic research.
Standing between them and acting as our guide into this complex world of esoteric science is Karri Krause in a stereotyped role of an ambitious newspaper reporter named Kellie Silverstein. It is her potential genetic flaw the playwright employs trying to anchor us dramatically to his visually arresting but overly complex tale of nucleotides and double helixes.
All three of the performers are engaging and talented and they work assiduously and heroically doing double duty as actors and college lecturers, but the stars of this production are those who have in essence made a full length version of Jurassic Park's "Dino DNA" featurette. Those wizards are Gary Smoot (sets), Jose Lopez (lighting), Robbin E. Broad and Joseph M. Wilbur (sound design) and the especially wizardly Jason H. Thompson (video and projection design).
One cannot deny the handsomeness of the production with its movable projection screens and dazzling light and sound show. Nor can one decry the fine work of the three actors. Detailing the conflict between Collins and Venter and discussing the science involved would have made a perfect subject for a John McPhee New Yorker essay. (Their Time magazine cover photo pictured as the "co-discovers" of human genetic sequencing was a delicious irony.) But as compelling subject matter for a theatrical venture, this is poor genetic material.
Performances through Nov. 09 at the Boston Court Theater, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. For tickets and information see the Boston Court website.
L.A. Weekly
THEATER PICK THE SEQUENCE For over 80 years, theater artists have been trying to make peace with technology and science, fields that would seem to defy the arts – from Elmer Rice's disturbing 1923 The Adding Machine; to Heinar Kippart's 1964 drama, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer; to Tom Stoppard's impenetrable Arcadia in 1993; through David Auburn's emotionally wrought 2001 psychological exercise, Proof. Generally, though, real science is employed to move the plot along and involve characters without boring the audience with technical details. In Paul Mullin's new play, The Sequence, however, the protagonist is the scientific inquiry at the heart of the play – the mapping of the human genome. In a very pleasing twist of expectations, some fiercely human, comic moments make for breathtaking dramatic tension – stemming from questions of whether the ultimate credit for unraveling DNA should go to scientist Craig Venter (Hugo Armstrong) or Francis Collins (William Salyers) of the federal government, and whether reporter Kellie Silverstein should get a Pulitzer prize for writing a story about the two-man race. Mullin's often outlandish explanations of the subject make this a fascinating, rapid-fire entertainment, that moves from childlike storytelling to music hall and beyond. Director John Langs and his bright (and often over-articulate) actors maneuver with assurance through Mullin's slippery slopes between reality and fantasy. Gary Smoot's simple but sharp scenery, Jason H. Thompson's projections and Jose Lopez's present beautifully crafted visual production – adding Robbin E. Broad and Joseph M. Wilbur's pounding sound design creates an even more profound environment. Boston Court Theatre, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Nov. 9. (626) 683-6883. (Tom Provenzano)
CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
The Sequence
This is the most important science story since the Manhattan Project. No, it's way more important because it affects every single one of us so deeply, so intimately. This is the story. The story. I mean, it gives the Bible a run for its money, you know?— Kellie (Karri Krause in The Sequence)
The world premiere of The Sequence at the Theatre at Boston Court attempts to combine a scientific history lesson with theater. Based on a true story, the play documents the race between scientists Craig Venter and Francis Collins to sequence the human genome. Collins headed the Human Genome Project (HGP), a project coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. Venter, on the other hand, was president of "Celera Genomics." He spearheaded the "shotgun" method to decode genes, resulting in a competition between a privately funded corporation with the intention of patenting genes, and a public initiative to keep the codes accessible to everyone.
If it sounds complicated, it is. Paul Mullin does an admirable job of breaking down both sides of the argument, but at the show's core is still a heady, intellectual competition, immersed in scientific jargon that only partially translates. Craig Venter (a compelling Hugo Armstrong) seems unconcerned with the ethical issues involved in using scientific discovery as a means to make money. Francis Collins (a droll William Salyers) appears to be the more admirable of the two, but we quickly learn that in the race for fame nothing is what it appears. Narrating the events, journalist Kellie Silverstein (Karri Krause), takes us on her personal voyage to win a Pulitzer and to decide whether to take a test to determine her future—if she is genetically predisposed to develop breast cancer. Ultimately, although the show has its moments, the presentational narrative makes it hard to invest in the emotional arcs of the characters, and to believe Kellie when she claims "This is the story. The story. I mean, it gives the Bible a run for its money, you know?"
The problem here is, in many ways, the story. Although we are given a science lesson that reminds one of a high school biology class on drugs (Kellie even commands Venter and Collins to spice things up and make it more sexy) it's still hard to fully grasp exactly WHAT will be achieved when the genome is decoded. Perhaps this is why, although the real life race ended fairly recently, most of us have little idea of the events that took place. Venter and Collins have not yet achieved Watson and Crick status.
Although the production design and visual effects are top notch, the characters have trouble breaking through to the audience with their dialogue. Mullin's writing tries to connect us to our narrator, Kellie, and her emotional turmoil over the test for the breast cancer gene, but Krause's delivery is too presentational. Lines that should be thrown away are delivered with such precision that the pace and tone are lost. However, when the show works, it does so brilliantly — instances where Vetner and Collins connect are riveting, and the fact that the story really happened helps engage.
Still, moments that resonate are lost within the science. The script was originally commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Project in Science and Technology. Science and technology are indeed front and center, but as the play itself admits, DNA is never going to be as interesting as the Manhattan Project and nuclear bombs. Kellie even spells it out: "The Manhattan project they understood. The bomb sold itself. In a flash." Although The Sequence tries its best to sell with flashes of light and projections galore, it ultimately falls prey to its own inability to communicate.
The Sequence Directed By: John Langs
Written By: Paul Mullin
Cast: Hugo Armstrong, Karri Krause and William Salyers
Scenic Design: Gary Smoot
Lighting Design; Jose Lopez
Costume Design: Dianne K. Graebner
Sound Design: Robbin E. Broad and Joseph M. Wilbur
Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes, no intermission
Dates: Now through November 9, 2008. Thurs/Fri/Sat at 8pm; Sun at 2 pm
70 North Mentor Avenue at Boston Court, Pasadena, CA 91116.
Tickets: $32
Tickets: Available online at bostoncourt.org or the box office at 626-683-6883
Reviewed by Ariana Mufson on 10/12/08.
Pasadena Star
by Frances Baum
Nicholson
The quintessential drama involved in painstaking scientific discovery doesn't
necessarily translate well to the wider population. Thus, when a play manages
to turn a true scientific battle into compelling, even thought-provoking
theater, this becomes something worthy of note.
Such a moment comes with Paul Mullin's "The Sequence," now receiving
its world premiere at The Theatre at Boston Court in Pasadena. The play
captures the last frenzied years in the mapping of the human genome, when a
split in motive and technique posed questions which continue to reverberate
within the scientific community and the American ethic.
In dealing with this most sensitive, most personal subject - the mapping of
ourselves - this essentially factual piece becomes far more complex, and
frankly far more interesting than the usual tawdry melodramas on the topic,
such as, say, the Pasadena Playhouse's long-ago "Twilight of the
Golds." Here there are two sides in a fight for science, and both sides
are both right and wrong. When a journalist attempts to simplify things into a
good guy/bad guy melodramatic scenario, she finds herself caught in the middle
by her own dual issues of ambition and genetic mystery.
The play examines Francis Collins, leader of the government team of scientists
in charge of mapping human genes, Craig Venter, who developed an admittedly
scattergun but faster and more commercial process, and their race toward the
end zone of the completed genome map. The two are very real people. Indeed, an
early reading of this piece was even attended by Collins. What "The
Sequence" manages to do is take a highly specialized field's internal
struggle and speak it in larger human terms.
William Salyers creates a complicatedly paternal, gentle Collins, ill-equipped
for fighting scientific war. Hugo Armstrong makes a delightfully caustic, even
seemingly conscienceless Venter, whose excesses nonetheless propel forward
information in terms corporate America might be more likely to use. Karri
Krause proves most engaging as the journalist entangled in all of this, anxious
to write the piece of her career covering the struggle, all the while avoiding
thinking about the genetic time bomb of her own family history.
Director John Langs has created a flowing arc of story, using Gary Smoot's
facile set and Jason H. Thompson's projections, which walk us through the
history, the science, and the constant venue changes with consistent interest
.Indeed, everything works to keep one engaged in the story, the time period and
the underlying questions.
That is, except for one tiny but central detail. In a tale set in the late
1990s, the focus keeps returning to a bright red, old fashioned land-line
phone, belonging to the young reporter. Yet that phone is far too old, as it
has a rotary dial at a time when everyone would have had push-buttons. Nobody
would have had that phone in the late 90s, least of all an ambitious and
successful reporter. It's surprising how much that distracts.
Still, with that exception, "The Sequence," which is performed
without intermission, will leave one startled that so much time has passed when
it ends. The engaging characters, the high drama, the questions of political
and economic expediency, the concerns about the future wrought by the
discoveries made will give everyone who sees the play plenty to chew over as
they leave. As the journalist discovers for herself, the ideas one mulls prove
more difficult, but a lot more interesting, than the mere melodrama.
What: "The Sequence" When: Through November 9, 8 p.m. Fridays
and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays Where: The Theatre at Boston Court, 70 N.
Mentor (at Boston Court) in Pasadena How Much: $32 Info: (626)
683-6883 or www.bostoncourt.org <http://www.bostoncourt.org/>
Blog Critics
The Sequence by
Paul Mullin at The Theatre @ Boston Court
by Robert Machray
The delineation of the human genome has to be the most important discovery in
the last century. A genome is comprised of the chemical base pairs that make up
DNA. The mapping of the human genome is an important step in determining the
genetic makeup of any given (unique) individual and using that knowledge to
create medicines and procedures that could cure diseases heretofore incurable.
Could the search for the human genomic makeup make for riveting theatre?
You bet it can.
The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena is presenting The
Sequence, which maps the historical events that have led to the mapping of
the human genome (well, almost). The reason it makes good theatre is
that The Sequence follows the struggle of two uber-brilliant
scientists as they compete to be the first to accomplish the goal. On the one
hand you have Francis Collins (William Salyers) who has proceeded at a conservative
pace, releasing his findings as he goes along. On the other hand is the
eccentric Craig Venter (Hugo Armstrong) whose company, Celera Genomics, is
using unconventional means and patenting each discovery for the purpose of
making a profit. The battle is between public good and private profit, and an
exciting journey it is. These scientists cheat, lie, manipulate the public, and
generally have a good time doing so, sometimes with hilarious results.
Keeping score is a wide-eyed journalist (Karri Krause) who has both public
reasons (she wants a Pulitzer) and a private motive (she might have inherited
breast cancer). In the course of the play all three characters go through
intense self-examination and discovery.
The cast is excellent. William Salyers plays the nerdy Collins, who discovers
his competitive nature in trying to deal with the wily Venter as played by
Armstrong. Both actors are strong, but Armstrong is particularly good; he has
been in previous productions at The Boston Court, where he is a regular and
rightly so. He has a sense of humor combined with menace (think Jack Nicholson)
that makes him eminently watchable. Speaking of watchable, Karri Krause is very
much so as she plays the aggressive beauty who more or less referees the
evening.
Sparks fly as we witness the excitement of a great scientific discovery. But
it's dull science, you say. Well, it's not dull as staged by John Langs and
written by Paul Mullin. Balloons, colorful DNA strands falling from the
ceiling, and monitors on the back which are used as a backdrop to the action
make The Sequence a thoroughly enjoyable evening at the theatre.
Gosh, and I learned something too. The Sequence plays at The
Theatre @ Boston Court <http://blogcritics.org/http/:www.bostoncourt.com/>
until Nov. 9th.
Mountain Views Observer
The Sequence
by Despina Tsiknas-Arzouman
Theatre may still be among the best mediums to teach matters of social import while entertaining. Real life topics, like the race to sequence the human genome, usually get brief mentions on TV news, or in an article printed in a section of the newspaper that the majority of readers might miss. If we're lucky, we might find a TV program on the subject. But, what if you're one of those people who don't like watching TV, or reading the newspaper, or believe that a science topic is too complicated to grasp. The Sequence dramatizes the question "who and what am /are I, you, we?" via the actual intellectual combativeness of two scientists, and one reporter. This was brilliantly written by playwright, Paul Mullin, and superbly directed by John Langs.
It is always curious how a sincere desire to research into life mysteries may oft become transformed—even corrupted—into the age-old paradigm called competition. Then, it becomes the competition (not the research desire) that qualifies what perspective and course such competition will take. Competition implies there are at least two opposing views, or ideas, which become the driving force behind the "success" (proving) or "failure" (disproving) rather than following the initial sincere desire to know. In addition, opposing views are susceptible to attracting possibly unbalance and therefore "dangerous" thoughts that support their respective perspective. Then, the competitive drive becomes the means and the ends.
At one point, scientist Craig Venter (played by Hugo Armstrong) was clearly headlined as being the "Dark Prince" in the race which illustrated how Venter's underlying drive was totally about gaining fame, notoriety, and monetary wealth; while scientist, Francis Collins (played by William Salyers) claimed to be fully concerned with the moral issues of such research. As depicted in the play, the respective competitive thoughts of each scientist then "colored" the scientific process, as well as the projected outcome(s); each exposing the limitations, biases, and ultimately the baseness of their thoughts (and subsequent actions). Their interpersonal competition then turned into an internal struggle to reconnect with the original meaning and purpose of their research. As in all finely written and executed plays, the paradigm of dark vs. light gets "played out" very well and on various levels in The Sequence.
It was also evident that reporter, Kellie Silverstein (played by Karri Krause) was caught in her own battle between science and morality, and between fame for personal welfare, as she followed the progress of both scientists. The Sequence is a multilayered story of dualistic phenomena.
The Sequence should hopefully get everyone thinking (it did me) about "who and what am I"; and inspire us to do our own thinking and feeling and delving into the patterns we each have found are to be repeated in life. From a philosophical perspective, it has been stated that all our true battles stem from an internal conflict, and that external conflicts are a reflection of the internal ones. When the pure search for truth collides with the competitive politicking thoughts (that also pervade one's thinking process), it distorts what one is seeking. If, through our work and interrelationships, thoughts are expressed, then where did those thoughts originally come from? Could thoughts (in the form of unconscious mistakes, habits, familial character traits) emanate out from what is encoded in our genes (because such predispositions were passed down through our ancestors)? Methinks the answers to such questions all get traced back to the phrase "Know Thy Self" -a Socratic as well as Taoist concept- which has more to do with the disciplined search for internal mindful integration, rather than unraveling the spirals cast within physical existence.
THE SEQUENCE will be playing through November 9th at The Theatre at Boston Court, 701 N. Mentor Street, Pasadena, CA. For additional information call (626) 683-6883, ext. 106; go to their website at www.bostoncourt.com.