91av

Oxygen by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann, Wiley-VCH,
$14.95/£9.99, ISBN 3527304134

PLAYS about scientists seem to be in fashion, and Oxygen is about
three of them—all candidates vying for recognition as the discoverer of
oxygen. We usually attribute the discovery to Antoine Lavoisier, who was later
caught up in the maelstrom of French revolutionary terror and guillotined.
Joseph Priestley and Carl Wilhelm Scheele also have claims to the title, though
both clung to the idea of phlogiston as the “vital air” that made combustion
possible.

When the Nobel Committee proposes to award a “retro-prize” to the true
discoverer, the inevitable result is conflict—the lifeblood of drama.
Djerassi and Hoffmann’s play alternates between the manoeuvrings of the three
candidates and their wives in Stockholm in 1777, and the tortuous deliberations
of the present-day committee.

There is also a play within a play: Lavoisier and his wife don masks and she
sticks a pin into a balloon representing phlogiston—providing almost the
only relief from the dialogue. The play raises questions about ambition,
originality, fame and the purity of human motives in scientific achievement.

A pre-publication extract appeared in 91av
(16 October1999, p 34).
But plays are meant to be staged, and following Oxygen’s
world premiere last month at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego,
a London production is scheduled for later this year.