Throughout history a number of great artists have also been scientists. “Anton Tchekhov himself was a practicing physician.” Hassan Abdualrazzak, researcher at Imperial College and playwright tells me in the Junior Common Room at Imperial where we met for the interview. He continues to say that scientists make good playwrights due to the huge analytical skills needed to write a good script. This may go against the stereotype that scientists are rigorous, working only from hard facts while artists are eccentric, run by their emotions and impulses, however as many before him Hassan has disproven this stereotype by remaining a successful scientist whilst producing award winning work. His first play “Bagdad Wedding” was wildly praised, premiering at London’s Soho theatre, and also reproduced by BBC Radio 3, as well as in theatres in Sydney and New York. Bagdad Wedding focuses on the lives of three professional Iraqis. The play moves between London and Bagdad where the wedding of the main character, Salim, a doctor and writer of adult fiction is taking place. On the way to the wedding Salim’s cousins fire gunshots up into the sky (a traditional occurrence at Iraqi weddings), attracting the attention of American soldiers. Believed to be a terrorist, Salim is captured and tortured. The play starts with Salim’s death; his friend, Marwan, looks back at their relationship and how they met at Imperial College as students. Hassan tells me that one of the scenes in the play takes place at the base of Queen’s Tower where Marwan and his love interest Luma, an outgoing, energetic Iraqi medical student, are talking about the tower and admiring it. Luma returns to Iraq after her father’s death to practice medicine in an under-equipped hospital. One of the themes in the play is her adjusting to her new job which requires her doing things such as putting on a hijab in order to fit in.

The main concern of the play, and possibly of Hassan’s upcoming work in the depiction of his characters, which shows ordinary Iraqi people educated, interested in art and leading seemingly normal lives, contradicts common beliefs and images from the media that only show the disaster, tragedy and religious fanaticism. Hassan’s characters drink, work, fall in love and have insecurities. They are seemingly alive and human in every possible manner. The ability to capture the multiple layers of humanity combined with telling history by depicting everyday life may be one of the main reasons for his success as a playwright.

Growing up in a family of academics and intellectuals Hassan thought his uncle, a novelist, to have the most interesting job of all. As a child he had seen the uncle work on old typewriters, manuscripts being almost holy mystified objects, out of reach and touch for his young hands. As a boy he had written stories in Arabic, his mother tongue, and had considered pursuing writing as a career. However, upon leaving Iraq and arriving to the UK at the age of thirteen he was led into the path of science because his English was not developed enough and he was unable to take courses such as English literature at GCSE. Throughout the years, and as his English improved, he took up writing again. At first, it was short stories he would show to no one, except maybe a trusted friend. In the meantime he received a PhD from UCL and proceeded to work at Imperial as a postdoc in stem cell research. He went to Harvard for a short while on a one-year contract, but his stay there was cut short after 9⁄11 because he no longer felt safe staying in the country.

When asked about where he gets his inspiration from, he mentioned names such as Arthur Miller, Kafka and British playwright Anthony Neilson, who according to Hassan writes “dark twisted funny plays, that are almost like fairy tales for adults”. Hassan, being a humble person, proceeded to tell me about how he had chosen to write a letter to Harold Pinter in the ‘90s after reading his book opposing the first Iraq invasion in ‘91; “I have to write him a letter I thought, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t answer, so I wrote a letter to the publisher and would you believe it I received a handwritten letter with his home address printed on it!” Hassan tells me with excitement. Having also included a sample of his writing in it, Hassan mentions that Pinter’s letter had been encouraging. He also declares that he would like to write in a more abstract manner, although his two upcoming plays are both realistic and political.

Hassan’s characters drink work, fall in love and have insecurities

The first one he mentions is A Fire Blazing Brightly, a bigger, more “epic” play, once more set between London and Iraq, that he hopes will be bought by one of London’s larger theatre companies. The second play, titled The Prophet, and premiering on the 14th of June at London’s Gate Theatre came about differently: artistic director, Christopher Haydon commissioned Hassan to write a play about the “Arab Spring” with Egypt as its focus. The international reputation of The Gate is one of the main reasons for Haydon’s choice of Hassan, as instead of bringing in and translating European plays, he had found an international writer in the UK: “ I was born in Prague, I grew up a little bit in Bagdad, I grew up a little bit in Egypt, Nigeria… and then I came here. Because of my background, I ‘qualify’ for a theatre like The Gate”, Hassan explains.

Hassan continues by describing the plot of The Prophet and how he and Hayden had bounced ideas off one another until coming up with the concept of using the metaphor of a couple – Leila and Hisham – trapped in their marriage, to describe the situation in Egypt, a country trapped by Mubarak’s rule and unable to move forward. The play follows a day in the life of this couple: that day is the 28th of January 2011, the start of the Egyptian revolution. According to Hassan; “Most people say the revolution started on January 25th, but the 25th was a small demonstration; on Friday 28th over one million people came out on the street, and that’s really when the revolution properly began.”

Who could have guessed that in the labs of Imperial such a theatre talent was hidden? Hassan is not only ambitious and hard-working, he is also down to earth. As a treat for the theatre enthusiasts at Imperial Hassan has arranged discounted tickets; all you need to do is call up The Gate and say the word ‘Iraq’ to get a discounted ticket of £10 until the 28 June!

The Prophet_ runs at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill, from 14 June to 21 July. See www.gatetheatre.co.uk for more details._