Summerhall, Edinburgh
4 stars
In 1951, Henrietta
Lacks was diagnosed with a cancer that would kill her shortly after.
As a black woman in Baltimore, her rights were limited, and she would
never know that a cell sample taken without her permission would
provide fuel for some of the most significant scientific
breakthroughs of the last half century, sealing the careers and
reputations of many scientists en route.
Such a scandalous
violation of human rights forms the back-ground to this new solo
piece written and performed by Adura Onashile in association with the
Iron-Oxide company and commissioned by Edinburgh International
Science Festival. As seen all too appropriately in Summerhall's
marvellously evocative Dissection Room, Graham Eatough's production
has Onashile jump between Henrietta's all too personal story and its
greater historical consequences with a verve that has her sprawled on
a stretcher one minute, then dancing for dear life itself the next.
There is archive film footage too, as Onsashile dissects historical
data with forensic detail.
It's a shocking slice
of shamefully hidden history which does science's reputation no
favours as it exposes some of it's more clinically invasive and
downright abusive practices. In Eatough and Onashile's hands, it's
also theatrically bold in the telling, with Onashile's heart-rending
performance at its centre. As she chalks up the details of one more
scientist who made it big on the back of Henrietta's stem cells, it's
a damning indictment of those who effectively dehumanised Henrietta
into a symbol, even as they lent her a kind of immortality. The three
Science Festival performances promised much for a full run later in
the year of a piece that exposes a topic that remains chillingly
relevant.
The Herald, April 8th 2013
ends
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