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GENDER AS RITUAL AND ‘POETIC RITUALITY’ IN CONTEMPORARY ‘BIOSCIENCE DRAMA’
identities.’ Stanford chemistry professor and birth control pill inventor Carl
Djerassi, who was also successful as a novelist and playwright, came forward
with two bioscience dramas. The first one is titled An Immaculate Miscon¬
ception. Sex in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction and was first performed in
1999." It is a comedy of mistaken identity about the biomedical invention of
the “intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI),” a revolutionary new reproduc¬
tive technology allowing men who suffer from low sperm production to ge¬
netically father their own children." Djerassi’s first bioscience drama reveals
the enduring impact of ritualized gender norms on biomedicine as cultural
practice while refering to the same religio-ethical questions as Hochhuth’s
IVF play.”° Djerassi’s second bioscience drama, Taboos, premiered in 2006 and
was the story of a lesbian couple starting a family by means of IVF, thereby
challenging (but not only that) their relatives’ ritualised family and gender
identity patterns.”! KENNNUMMER 10/12/2007 [ID — IDENTIFICATIONNUMBER
10/12/2007] by German screen playwright Martin Liittge, premiered in 2000.
This youth theater play is the first German-language drama to combine IVF,
genetic engineering, and reproductive cloning in the framework of a family
drama in order to critically reflect on the potential effects of future develop¬
ments in IVF — such as the artificial uterus — on ritualised family patterns
and gender imagery.”” Other examples of bioscience drama are two plays on
human cloning which both premiered in 2002 as a repercussion of the birth of
clone sheep “Dolly”: firstly Caryl Churchill’s celebrated A number,” and sec¬
ondly Igor Bauersima’s futur de luxe, which will be further investigated in this
paper." Furthermore, Rainer Lewandowski’s Ich [Me],”° and Tanja Rese’s Blue¬
print — Duett für einen Zwilling [Blueprint — duet for one twin],*° both feature
Giesler: Zur Performativität des Materials, 144-147. Playbook courtesy of the playwright.
Carl Djerassi: An Immaculate Misconception — Sex in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,
London, Imperial College Press, 2000.
Factually speaking, the ICSI technology was actually developed by four Belgian scientists
who announced their invention to the scientific community in 1992, see Gianpiero Palermo —
Hubert Joris — Paul Devroey — André C. Van Steirteghem: Pregnancies after intracytoplasmic
injection of single spermatozoon into an oocyte, The Lancet — a journal of British and foreign
medicine, surgery, obstetrics, physiology, chemistry, pharmacology, public health and news
340.8810 (1992), 17-18.
Birte Giesler: Inszenierungen des ‘Doing Family’ in einer biotechnisierten Kultur: Reproduk¬
tionstechnologien, Generativität und Verwandtschaft im ‘Biowissenschaftsdrama’ seit Rolf
Hochhuths Unbefleckte Empfängnis, Feministische Studien 37.1 (2019), 29-47.
Carl Djerassi: Sex in an Age of Technological Reproduction: ICSI and Taboos, Madison, Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
Textbook courtesy of ‘Theaterhof Priessenthal’ theater.
23° Caryl Churchill: A number, London, Royal Court Theatre, 2002.
Igor Bauersima: futur de luxe, in norway.today. 3 Theaterstiicke, Frankfurt a. M., Fischer,
2003, 63-120.
The play premiered in 2003. Playbook orderable online at http://www.rainer-lewandowski.
de/, http://www.rainerlewandowski.de
The play premiered in 2006. Playbook courtesy of the playwright.
* 181 +