In the mid–1800s, the Hungarian physician and scientist Ignaz Semmelweis observed that washing one’s hands before delivering a baby drastically reduced the incidence of puerperal fever. In fact, because “childbed fever” was so widespread in hospitals many women chose to give birth in the street. Semmelweis came to believe that the handling of cadavers during training and research left contamination on the hands of doctors. He prescribed hand-washing with antiseptics. Mortality rates plunged, and he was called the “savior of mothers.” And yet, in 1865, Semmelweis died alone in an asylum. Insulted by his suggestion that the hands of doctors were dirty, the medical community had rejected him and his theory. In Dr. Semmelweis, the playwright Stephen Brown dramatizes the savior’s life while invoking the ghosts of those who were not saved. The always powerful Mark Rylance stars. —Jensen Davis