‘Duality reigns,” says the German-Jewish chemist Fritz Haber in Tony Harrison’s play. The same could be said of Harrison’s piece itself, getting its first revival since 1992, in that it blends science and magic, polemic and pantomime, and the development of nitrates for both war and peace. It is an extraordinary play that, along with Ewan MacColl’s Uranium 235 created in 1945 for Theatre Workshop, is one of the few works to use popular techniques to explore scientific morality.
Harrison’s theme is science’s capacity for creation and destruction and, in particular, the use of poisonous gases in the first world war. In the slightly information-heavy first half he introduces us to a succession of chemists and inventors – Justus von Liebig, William Crookes, Hiram and Hudson Maxim – who all have their own schemes for the betterment of mankind or the propagation of war. But the most fascinating figure is Haber (1868-1934) who exemplifies science’s power for good and evil. Haber envisages a fertiliser that will make wastelands flower while developing a gas that will lead to untold death. What makes the play so vibrant is that he is passionately opposed by his wife, Clara, while remaining unrepentant about chemical warfare. “It’s bad enough to die but once you’ve died,” he asks, “isn’t it better if your corpse can be identified?”
Harrison’s stabbing, satiric verse strikes the right balance between the serious and the comic and gives licence to Jimmy Walters’s expressive production to make use of magic. Daisy Blower’s design is dominated by a rotating cabinet and black and white silks are produced from a conjuror’s top hat to demonstrate the properties of nitrogen and oxygen.
In an all-female, six-strong cast, there is good work from Philippa Quinn as the self-deluded Haber, Gracy Goldman as his sceptical spouse and Eva Feiler as a German chemist who vivaciously argues that corpses can be used for their phosphate potential. It’s a rich mix of a play that seems especially timely as we prepare to commemorate Armistice Day and continue to express our horror at chemical weapons.
