Theatre review: Dr Semmelweis

After his return to Jerusalem was a sell-out, there was little question that another recent Mark Rylance project would make its way to the West End as well: Stephen Brown's Dr Semmelweis, first seen at the Bristol Old Vic, also gives Rylance a co-writing credit as it was apparently his idea to dramatise the story of an obstetrician who saw the importance of hygiene in medicine decades before anyone understood bacteria, and was laughed and bullied out of his profession for it. I'm not sure it's entirely in character for Rylance to side with the latest medical discoveries over, say, fresh air and garlic; then again the play also shows Ignaz Semmelweis as a paranoid conspiracy theorist so it's six of one half a dozen of the other. The play begins in the middle of the story, with Semmelweis losing his mind, but retaining its sharpness in some ways.

Established back in Budapest running a maternity ward with a remarkably low death rate for the mid 19th century, when he's visited by a couple of former colleagues he ends up sharing the truth about his earlier career with his pregnant wife Anna (Amanda Wilkin.)

Working at what was then the world’s largest and most advanced hospital in Vienna, he seems to be the only person bothered by the fact that the doctors’ ward has four times the mother and infant death rate of the neighbouring midwives’ ward. He convinces colleagues Ferdinand von Hebra (Felix Hayes) and Jakob Kolletschka (Jude Owusu) to help him, and the progress they make gets them a new assistant in Franz Arneth (Ewan Black) and the backing of the eminent pathologist and pioneer of autopsies, Karl von Rokitansky (Daniel York Loh.) But the support they’re crucially missing is that of head doctor Johann Klein (Alan Williams.) Their experiments have to be done in his absence, and when he finds out about them he sabotages them at every turn.

The story itself feels like a parallel to Florence Nightingale’s: She too wanted to know why her hospital seemed to cause more deaths than it prevented; largely used statistics to investigate; and came to the conclusion that washing your hands might be quite a good thing to do before sticking them in someone’s open wound. If Semmelweis hasn’t become as famous as her, maybe bedside manner has something to do with it, as Rylance shows him deeply affected and concerned by the needless deaths of all these young women and babies, but utterly unable to empathise with the way his colleagues might also be affected by their discoveries. It’s a gruff, impatient and unforgiving exterior that provides his tragic flaw, ultimately alienating those around him and derailing his own life’s work.

If this group of doctors is inevitably a very male one, the play makes sure to centre the invaluable presence of Nurse Müller, whose understanding of the wards and their history, as well as the actual women they’re treating, speeds their research immeasurably. Pauline McLynn is perfect casting, bringing a steely glare of determination but also a touch of sardonic humour that the show is otherwise lacking – the subject matter might be serious but the script can sometimes be a bit too much like the title character, forgetting to bring a more human element into its furious search for the truth, and railing against those who suppress it.

Semmelweis is particularly haunted by the first woman he failed to save on the ward – as she was a ballerina, this has become a theme of Tom Morris’ production, which surrounds the actors with female musicians playing Adrian Sutton’s discordant music, and dancers performing Antonia Franceschi’s jagged choreography around Ti Green’s gothic set (which includes an upper level not really visible from the Balcony seats; as the show sometimes sends actors into the audience to shout out contributions, this led to one moment when Owusu was up among the audience next to us, and leaned over to point out “you can’t see it but Anna’s giving birth up there.” Definitely a useful accessibility feature, that one.)

It’s all rather beautiful and atmospheric but can make the show as a whole feel monotonous. The second act is better as both Rylance’s performance and the music and dance surrounding him take on a madder, angrier and more chaotic tone – we discover that some of the doctor’s mental breakdown may be down to how forcefully he tried to suppress some of his own memories about how he mistreated his colleagues. Rylance is of course an always-watchable actor whose status is already legendary, and he’s got a complex central character to chew on here – someone we want to root for because he’s so clearly in the right, but makes it hard because of his personality. And there’s definitely an interesting story here: The audience are in the position of having known the solution to the mystery all their lives, so the interest is in seeing how the characters will piece it together and try to make sense of its disparate clues. But the way the play is built around these solid central elements didn’t always draw me in.

Dr Semmelweis by Stephen Brown with Mark Rylance is booking until the 7th of October at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Simon Annand.