A theme of rebirth

Few people accomplish something in their 20s that changes the world so much that they land on lists like “The 30 Most Important People of the Millennium.” Fewer still achieve that and then take up second, third and fourth careers.

But it’s fitting that Carl Djerassi, the chemist who at age 28 set off the chain reaction that produced the birth control pill, transformed himself into a poet, a novelist and a playwright decades later. Chemists are, after all, experts on transformation, and Djerassi is an expert among experts. Now 80, he taught chemistry for 43 years at Stanford University, received 19 honorary doctorates and was awarded the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology.

But what gives him the most personal satisfaction is what he least expected to be doing: writing plays. The four he’s completed so far have been produced worldwide, from New York to London to Tokyo. His first, “An Immaculate Misconception,” already translated into nine languages, is currently getting a reading by L.A. Theatre Works at the Skirball Center through Sunday. Considering how much drama the pill brought to his life, it’s no wonder Djerassi eventually turned to the stage. Feminists criticized its makers for not developing an oral contraceptive for men, and the political right blamed the pill for spawning the sexual revolution. The spectacle surrounding reproductive science is perfect for theater.

Djerassi calls his writing “science-in-fiction,” and “An Immaculate Misconception” exemplifies the genre. In the play, a female scientist in her late 30s wants a child, but her lover has a low sperm count. In an experimental procedure she manages to fertilize some of her eggs, but her lab partner, dismayed by the quality of the sperm being used in the experiment, injects some of the other eggs with healthy sperm -- his own. She is implanted with one of the fertilized eggs and, months into her pregnancy, discovers that the biological father may not be her lover.

The play’s themes -- love, children and reproductive science -- are also the main themes of Djerassi’s life. By 1977, Djerassi had been divorced twice. “I thought I was finished with marriage. Then, I met Diane Middlebrook on Valentine’s Day,” he says, referring to the then-Stanford English professor. But six years into their relationship, she fell in love with someone else during a yearlong sabbatical at Harvard.

“I really am sort of embarrassed now,” he says in a soft Viennese accent, “but I had a typical male response: [angry] and self-pitying. The only hormones I was secreting were the macho ones -- testosterone, corticosteroids and adrenaline. To my surprise, there came this outpouring of confessional poems, and like a typical scientist, I thought, ‘Anything worth doing is worth publishing.’ ” After enduring the writer’s hazing -- rejection -- he published poems in literary magazines and produced a chapbook.

A year after their separation, he and Middlebrook reconciled and he showed her another project he’d been writing: 331 pages of a novel about a 60-ish professor and his academic feminist lover at an unnamed university in the Bay Area. “You are undressing us both completely,” she told him, and when they married in 1985, she made him promise never to publish it. He didn’t, but used parts of that book in his third novel, “Marx, Deceased.”

Right after their wedding, Djerassi had a bout with cancer. “I was lying there for three weeks in the hospital, coming to terms with my mortality. And I decided that if I lived, I would like to live another intellectual life.” As a fiction writer. Now, he and Middlebrook, a biographer who just published “Her Husband” about Sylvia Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes, write eight to 10 hours nearly every day.

Off-HOURS, he attends plays, which is only partly why he began writing them after publishing five novels. “I like dialogue,” he says to explain the switch. “I’m a good conversationalist -- it’s probably the only charming thing about me. Plays are very human. They are never the same -- even played by the same actors in the same theater. It depends very much on the audience dynamic in a way that is totally absent from TV and film.”

Djerassi is also active behind the scenes. For 21 years, at his 1,200-acre ranch near Stanford, he has supported the Djerassi Resident Artist’s Program, which has given short residencies to more than 1,300 artists. He created it in honor of his daughter, Pamela, a painter and poet, who committed suicide in 1978. She was 28.

“In an emotional context, it’s the most important thing I’ve done,” he says. “That’s the only way I’ve been able to come to terms with my daughter’s suicide. I wanted to see that something living could be created out of death. Much of that work the artists have created over the years would not have been done if my daughter had not died.”

Artists who have benefited from the program include novelist Vikram Seth, wood sculptor David Nash and Pulitzer-winning composer John Adams.

While these artists are garnering awards and fame, their patron is as well. Djerassi’s plays are being translated, published and produced around the globe. His positively reviewed science-in-fiction novels have become staples of college courses examining the intersection of science and society. “I want to touch the people who say, ‘I don’t understand science,’ and don’t even give themselves a chance to try,” he says.

Djerassi now omits his science background when introducing himself. But his wife hasn’t changed the nickname she has called him since the day they met, the only name she has ever called him: “Chemist.”

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‘An Immaculate Misconception’

L.A. Theatre Works

Where: Skirball Cultural Center,

2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Tonight and Friday, 8 p.m.;

Sunday, 4 p.m.

Cost: $36 to $42; $25 for students

Contact: (310) 827-0889 or www.latw.org

Also: Discussion with playwright Carl Djerassi after tonight’s performance