The Dejvice Theatre presented Elegance of the Molecule in Belgium

Petr Zelenka's production was created with the support of the Neuron Foundation and in September 2022 was performed as a guest production on stages in Brussels and Leuven. The theatrical story of Antonín Holý and Erik De Clercq, a member of our scientific council, was part of the programme of a symposium organised by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. Thank you for such a fine representation of the values and achievements of Czech science!

Elegance of the Molecule has been in the repertoire of the Dejvice Theatre since 2018 and won the Theatre Critics' Award as the best new Czech play. The script and the direction are both by Petr Zelenka.

Read the story: Erik De Clercq on elegant molecules

About the production Elegance of the Molecule:

From the chemical laboratory to the pharmacy on the nearest corner is often only a few hundred metres. But on that journey the drug molecule goes through a process costing hundreds of millions of dollars, often involving thousands of people. That is, the molecule lucky enough to reach the finish. The play Elegance of the Molecule follows three such substances and their three "fathers", one of whom was the brilliant Czech chemist Professor Antonín Holý. It examines the origin and the highly dramatic industrial development of substances from Czech chemical laboratories that today treat AIDS in more than sixty per cent of patients worldwide. Otto Wichterle had his famous story about building a device to spin the first contact lenses out of a Merkur construction set. Petr Zelenka's play looks for such a "Merkur" in the life of the chemist Antonín Holý.