Dr Semmelweiss - Bristol Old Vic

When I saw that Mark Rylance was going to be coming to Bristol and appearing in a brand new play, I naturally couldn't resist, and promptly booked myself a ticket, for one of the preview performances..

The play is Dr Semmelweiss which as you may expect, is about Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss, (1818-1865), the Hungarian obstetrician who pioneered the use of hand-washing in hospitals, prior to Louis Pasteur and  Joseph Lister's research into bacteria. 

He noted that the incidence of puerperal fever / childbed fever (sepsis) was significantly lower in women who were treated in a ward run by midwives than one run by doctors, and, following the death of his friend and colleague Jakob Kolletschka, after accidentally butting his finger with a scalpel during an autopsy,realised the key difference was tht the doctors and medical students also attended and  performed autopsies, and posited that they were carrying 'cadaveric particles' or 'decaying organic matter' from cadavers, on their hands.  

He instituted hand-washing with chlorinated lime (which was used to clean and remove the smell, in the mortuary) , and reduced the mortality rate by around 90%.

Sadly, things did not end well for Ignaz - his conclusions were not accepted and, in a tragic irony, he died of septic shock after being  committed to  an insane asylum.

The play is told mostly in flashback, we start with Semmelweiss (Mark Rylance)  in Budapest with his wife Maria,  (Thalissa Teixeira) visited by his former colleagues seeking to persuade him to return to Vienna to speak, at a conference, about his discovery.

As we watch him , back in Vienna, learning that the death rate is higher in the Doctor's than the Midwives' ward, and facing the first death of a patient, then follow his story as he works out the connections and then struggles to cope with the difficulties of being unable to to convince others of his findings, and of being unable to navigate the politics needed to make people accept his theory.

Rylance's performance is, perhaps not unexpectedly, superb - passionate, and tragic - haunted by his failures, absolutely single-minded (and therefore intentionally cruel) in his determination to convince others of what he is certain is true, and his anger at those who cannot, or will not, accept his findings. He is ultimately overwhelmed by the failure to change things as much, or as quickly, as he wishes.

The play is very balletic - the Salomé quartet  provide music throughout, and there are dancers,(choreography by Antonia Franceschi)  as the various mothers, adding to the sense that Semmelweiss is always surrounded by, haunted by, the women he has failed to save.

Although Rylance's performance is the centre of this play, the supporting cast is also very strong, particularly Thalissa Teixeira as his wife, Jackie Clune as Nurse Muller (who also gets some of the best lines) and  Enyi Okoronkwo (Franz Arneth) 

It was planned and written before Covid hit, but inevitably  feels relevant and contemporary.

Very well worth seeing, and on at Bristol Old Vic until 19th February.