Vern Thiessen
Playwright maps the human condition through historical fact.
Vern Thiessen is a fascinating playwright, especially if you are a history buff.
This is the first in a four part series on the work of award winning Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen.
Like Peter Hinton, Vern Thiessen is a history fanatic, the kind of playwright that makes you want to go and find out much more about his protagonists long after the curtain has fallen.
Case in point - Einstein’s Gift, the piece that won Thiessen the 2003 Governor General’s Award - the Canadian Pulitzer. This drama continues to be performed across North America and Europe encouraging hours of rapt discussion in the process, be it audience member, scientist, or philosopher.
It's no wonder. Thiessen took seven years to write and research Einstein's Gift.
Since then, two other mediums have also explored the life of Fritz Haber for the English speaking audience. Haber is a 2006 film directed by Daniel Ragussis, and Zyklon (Haber’s chemical that contributed to poison gas) is an opera conceived by English alto sax master Peter King. King is now working toward a full staging of the piece after a 2004 workshop version was performed in New York to a standing ovation.
It's no stretch of the imagination to think that Thiessen's play was instrumental in the creation of both projects.
Einstein’s Gift is the story of Nobel Laureate / German scientist Fritz Haber, and his unusual long time friendship with fellow Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein. They were polar opposites one theoretical, one practical, but both scientists had common intentions to use their research in physics and chemistry to serve the greater good of humanity.
To Shakespearean extent, Einstein and Haber ended up contributing to the world’s most unspeakable evils, when their own science turned against them through governments and war powers planning an unconscionable agenda.
Einstein’s theory of relativity caused the creation of the atom bomb and Haber's name is synonomous with World War I mustard gas used in trench warfare.
Haber’s story is particularly sad. Also a German Jew, Haber was driven by his dedication to serve his country with his chemical breakthroughs. Despite scientist wife Clara’s warning (she commited suicide) and often his own rationality, Haber dedicated himself, mind, body and soul to the German government.
Haber discovered the nitrogen fixation process which developed fertilizers to help farmers’ crops, which in turn saved millions, curving starvation across Europe. This life changing discovery secured Haber the Nobel Prize. But Haber’s experiments in industrial chemistry were also used by his Fatherland to develop poisonous gases used in both World Wars and Haber was infamously dubbed Father of Chemical Warfare.
Thiessen, skilfully crafts a dramatic canvas based on these events focussing on morality, religious conviction, pride and the grand scientific passion of this unusual pair, their strengths and their weaknesses, for which the world paid a terrible price.
