Photograph 51 Themes

Photograph 51 centers on Rosalind Franklin, a 20th-century scientist whose infamous “Photograph 51” (an X-ray image of crystallized DNA) was crucial in discovering DNA’s double-helix structure. Throughout the play, Rosalind (who’s female and Jewish) works in a lab at King’s College London as a male scientist’s research assistant, and her white male colleagues treat her with relentless sexism and antisemitism that prevent her from being taken seriously in her career. As such…

Throughout Photograph 51, scientific research partners Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins have very different relationships to success and professional fulfillment. Rosalind, a Jewish woman, has spent the majority of her career in a male-dominated field knowing that unless her work is perfect, it will likely be dismissed. As a result, she’s motivated by a genuine love of her work and the ways it could benefit humanity—not the accolades she may or may not receive…

The timeline of Photograph 51 is fluid: as the play tells scientist Rosalind Franklin’s story, it also emphasizes the strange and often confusing nature of time. Characters aren’t limited to linear movement through time, as they often comment on their own (and one another’s) pasts, presents, and futures. Through its unconventional structure, the play examines how time worked against Rosalind Franklin, cutting her life short and forcing her into a race against the clock…