Lovesong of the Electric Bear
- Lovesong of the Electric Bear
The play by Snoo Wilson presented here is an imaginative recreation of the intricate interior life of Alan Turing (1912–54), the English mathematician whose idea of the Universal Turing Machine figures significantly in the conception and development of the modern computer, an embodiment of artificial intelligence that can be programmed to perform a sequence of operations leading to the solution of complex and challenging problems. Turing's early education took place at Sherborne School in Dorset. After securing First-Class Honors in Mathematics and a graduate fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, and a Ph.D. at Princeton University, he first came to prominence as one of the most brilliant of the codebreakers assembled to work together at Bletchley Park during the Second World War to out-think the German Enigma machine used to generate codes for strategic military communications, and he was for a time the head of the section assigned responsibility for deciphering the particular codes involved in German naval operations (including U-boat attacks). He ultimately became chief consultant for the overall program of codebreaking operations. During this period, among his colleagues Turing became as well-known for his various forms of eccentricity and unpredictability as for his evident genius. For his numerous significant accomplishments, in the late stages of the war he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. When the war ended, he was offered a position at the National Physical Laboratory in London, where he focused his attention on an ambitious plan for the design and production of an electronic computer. In 1951 his distinguished work as a scientist was recognized when he had the honor of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Arrested and prosecuted in 1952 for homosexuality (which was at that time illegal under English law), he was subsequently denied security clearance by the British government. In order to avoid imprisonment, he submitted to a year of estrogen treatments meant to produce a form of chemical castration. He died of cyanide poisoning in the spring of 1954. In the fall of 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a formal public apology to Turing for his treatment after the war. Readers interested in more detailed information about Turing's life and achievements may wish to begin by consulting Andrew Hodges's account in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, as well as the Turing website that Hodges maintains at www.turing.org.uk.
Cast of Characters (doubling as needed):
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• Alan Turing
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• Porgy Bear
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• Blackwood, Turing Sr [Julius], Cornish, Sergeant
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• Winston Churchill, Davis, Barman, Greenbaum, Dilly Knox [End Page 8]
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• Clemmie Churchill, Mother, Judge
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• Christopher Morcom, Joan Clarke
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• Kjell Christiansen, Undergrad 1, Marian Rejewski, Arnold Murray
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• Nurse, Fortune Teller, Undergrad 2, Ylena
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• Bronwyn, Varia
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• Old Southern Woman, Hallam, Man
Act 1
(Churchill at his easel, an old man, in sunhat, painting outdoors. Dappled light. Birdsong.)
(Off) Winston! Winston!
(Enter Clemmie, his ancient wife. Churchill oblivious.)
(Accusatory) Where's your hearing aid?
(Clemmie goes to Churchill's jacket, looks in the pockets. Failure. She has to speak louder.)
(Loud) Moran called, with bad news—for you, he said. Lord Moran. Your physician, Winston.
Bad news is always the same from my doctor: "You drink too much."
He said you would want to know. Alan Turing's dead.
Come off it, woman—Hermann Goering's been dead for years!
No, Alan Turing. (Precise) A-LAN TU-RING.
(Shocked) Turing … How?
By his own hand.
Oh, Christ.
Who was he? I never heard his name before.
He was a Bletchley backroom boy. A genius.
Why would he kill himself?
(Turing becomes visible, wrapped only in a sheet, peacefully dead. He is holding an apple with a bite out of it. He could be Christ taken down recently from the cross. Churchill shakes his head and turns away.)
He can't have been more than forty.
Will you come in now? If I call you when it's lunchtime, you won't hear. I'm not coming out again. I'm too old to be running around.
I'll...
