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    65th Season Opener

    Alley's Ether Dome carries extra, sobering punch in the shadow of the TexasMedical Center

    Joseph Campana
    Sep 10, 2011 | 6:24 am
    • John Tyson as Dr. John Warren, from left, Dylan Godwin as George Livingston,Sean Lyons as William Morton, Philip Lehl as Dr. George Hayward, Chris Hutchisonas Dr. Henry Bigelow, and Melissa Pritchett as Elizabeth Whitman Morton (back)in Ether Dome
      Photo by Jann Whaley
    • Michael Bakkensen as Dr. Horace Wells and Elizabeth Bunch as Elizabeth Wells inEther Dome
      Photo by Jann Whaley
    • From left, Michael Bakkensen as Dr. Horace Wells, Elizabeth Bunch as ElizabethWells and Sean Lyons as William Morton in the Alley Theatre's production ofEther Dome
      Photo by Jann Whaley
    • Playwright Elizabeth Egloff
      Photo by Jim Youmans

    In the beginning there was ether.

    Not at the beginning of time, but at the birth of modern anesthesia and commercialized medicine there was ether. This, at least, is how award-winning playwright Elizabeth Egloff sees one of the most important discoveries in the history of medicine.

    The world premiere of her newest play, Ether Dome, opens the Alley Theatre's 65th season with a complex portrait of the human drama behind a medical sea change. Ether Dome started its previews Friday night (with more previews set for Saturday and Sunday) before officially opening on Wednesday for a run that lasts through Oct. 9. Named for the amphitheater at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where the uses of ether were first demonstrated, the play is a commission of Hartford Stage and is directed by Michael Wilson.

    Ether may be colorless and tasteless, but its effects were profound. Imagine most surgical procedures with nothing more than opiates and a wooden stick to bite down on. There to usher a simultaneously miraculous and fragile compound, ether, into use in 1865 were a Hartford dentist and a medical student con man, Horace Wells and William Morton respectively, and even more drama than occasioned by modern day health care debates.

    The impact of ether is sobering to consider in the shadow of the Texas Medical Center, an institution itself nearly the same age as the Alley Theatre.

    Wells and Morton weren't exactly the toast of Europe, but readers across the Atlantic couldn't get enough of what is now the disastrous back story to the discovery of the surgical uses of ether. Wells began as Morton's mentor and then became his friend and practically family before Morton, a con man wanted in fourteen states, betrayed him.

    "It started as a student-teacher relationship," Egloff told CultureMap in a recent interview. "It seems to have become a father-student relationship. There was a great love for each other. William betrayed Horace and I think that had something to do with Horace’s addictions and demise."

    Indeed, after Morton successfully demonstrated the uses of ether and claimed credit for its discovery, Wells spiraled into depression, imbalance and addiction before being jailed for throwing sulfuric acid at two prostitutes.

    "Horace was a sensitive idealist," Egloff said, "and Morton was in it for the money. But in the beginning, Morton lived with Horace and was part of the family. Anywhere you look in this play there’s a father-son relationship. We see young men looking for a father figure, and the medical competition destroys the relationship."

    Some believe that the sensational headlines about medical experimentation gone wrong inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "It was a scandal that people couldn't get enough of," Egloff confirmed. "The idea of this doctor experimenting with gas, this very proper doctor turning into a monster and attacking women and killing himself."

    Betrayal may be the motor of human drama in Ether Dome, but for Egloff, it couldn't be more pertinent to contemporary conflicts about the nature and the finance of medical practices.

    "This is the first case of a patent battle, of commercialized medicine," Egloff stated, and of a pharmacist telling a hospital what to do. "By the end of the play, you see the emergence of the modern hospital where the pharmaceutical companies have a lot of control over what doctors can do. Until this time, there was a strict code of ethics. Normally, something this important would have been freely distributed."

    The impact of ether is sobering to consider in the shadow of the Texas Medical Center, an institution itself nearly the same age as the Alley Theatre. Consider that this array of medical institutions covers as much areas as the inner Loop of Chicago, employs nearly 100,000 people, brings $14 billion to the region and logs six million patient visits every year. And it's still growing.

    Egloff might argue all this flows from the discovery of ether. And while this discovery was a godsend for people suffering all manner of ailments, it also implied endless growth.

    "By the end of the play, you see the emergence of the modern hospital where the pharmaceutical companies have a lot of control over what doctors can do," Egloff said.

    "Once ether was worked into the routines of surgery," Egloff explained, "surgery was better and patients got better," she said. "They needed beds so patients should recover. Suddenly, they needed more beds and more supplies and more nurses. Everybody wanted surgery so they needed more doctors. The budgets for these hospitals grew exponentially and they became like businesses."

    Ether was not only a source of professional drama and medical controversy in mid-nineteenth-century America, but it also sparked religious debate. To many, Egloff said, "It didn't seem right to have pain relief. The Bible says you suffer for your sins. Your ability to suffer like Jesus is a measure of your worth as a Christian. That was a tremendous force against using ether. There were doctors spitting like wildfire who would not use it because it went against their ethics."

    A person or an event can emerge as a crossroads not usually recognized until much later in history. Ether Dome tracks the intersection of so many complex issues for contemporary life, it might be subtitled Love Hate Theft Betrayal Innovation Science Medicine God. Maybe in the end, then, ether is most easily understood as a religious mystery. "Even now, anesthesiologists don't know exactly how anesthesia works. They don't have a clear idea of the process, but it seems to work."

    And where would we be without anesthesia? Egloff laughed and said, "I'd be the first person to say, 'Thank God!' "

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    Movie Review

    Houston native Wes Anderson shows off comedic side in The Phoenician Scheme

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 6, 2025 | 4:00 pm
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme
    Photo courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme.

    If you were to do a poll of the best comedy filmmakers of the 21st century, writer/director Wes Anderson is not the obvious choice to come out on top, but there’s an argument to be made for him. His quirky style doesn’t yield the guffaws that more broad comedies do, but the absurd situations he creates in his films are often more consistently funny than anything else.

    Anderson’s inimitable approach is once again on full display in The Phoenician Scheme. At its center is Zsa-Zsa Gorda (Benicio Del Toro), a much-hated businessman who’s looking to complete a number of big projects in the fictional country of Phoenicia. As he seems to be the target of multiple assassination attempts, he appoints his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), as his heir to try to ensure his legacy.

    Both she and his new assistant, Bjorn (Michael Cera), accompany him around the country as he tries to enact a scheme to have others cover the bulk of the cost for the various projects. Those he attempts to convince include Phoenician Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), brothers Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston), fellow businessman Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), ship captain Marty (Jeffrey Wright), his Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), and Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch).

    Put in Andersonian terms, the film is a mix between the madcap antics from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the impenetrable storytelling of Asteroid City. If you were to try to understand every detail of what’s going on in the story of The Phoenician Scheme, it might take three or more viewings to do so. But the film is still highly entertaining because Anderson fills its frames with his typical visual delights, great wordplay, and his particular version of slapstick.

    Much of the comedy of the film derives from Anderson inserting moments that initially come as a surprise and then utilizing them as running jokes. The film features more blood than usual for the filmmaker, but each time a character gets wounded (or worse), it gets funnier. The assassination attempts get broader as the film goes along, and the matter-of-fact way in which they’re treated by Gorda and others is also hilarious.

    Of course, Anderson is the cinephile’s comedy director, so the film is also full of high-brow things like allusions to paintings, tributes to other filmmakers, and classical music. Each time Gorda has an attempt on his life, he briefly finds himself in a version of limbo, depicted in black-and-white by Anderson. The cast of characters Gorda finds there - including Bill Murray as God - could come straight out of a 1950s Ingmar Bergman movie.

    Del Toro has delivered some great performances over the years, but this one is near the top for him. This is his second Anderson film (following The French Dispatch) and he nails the deadpan method. Also great is Cera, who uses a ridiculous accent to make a big impression. Threapleton, the daughter of Kate Winslet, makes the most of her first big film role. The list of supporting actors is too deep to properly laud everyone, but they all fit in seamlessly.

    Opinions will differ, but for this critic’s money, Anderson is at his best when he fully leans into the comedy of his films. He does just that in The Phoenician Scheme, to the point that it doesn’t matter that the story is overly complex. The combination of his eye for visual detail, a witty script, and committed performances make it a success.

    ---

    The Phoenician Scheme is now playing in theaters.

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