The Union of Concerned Scientists keep reassessing how
many minutes away from nuclear annihilation we all are. The last I heard it was
moved back to eight. This concern with Armageddon can be traced to the discovery
of uranium. Alan Brody’s riveting exploration of the men who toiled to isolate
and split those isotopes, is called OPERATION EPSILON. His intriguing play is
getting a smashing world premiere at the Nora Theatre Company this month
(through April 28th).
Most Americans are familiar with the Manhattan
Project and the first atomic detonation at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
Much has been written about the scientists and their trepidations, once they
grasped the enormity of the destruction. Robert Oppenheimer read from the Bhagavad
Gita, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” as they readied the
blast. Enrico Fermi, it is said, made side bets that the explosion would set
off a cataclysmic chain reaction around the world.
We know the Allied side of the story but little about the German scientists working toward the same goal. Thanks to Brody’s gripping new play (based on Allied documents) we witness the engineers and physicists who worked “for the regime” racing (and sabotaging each other) to be the first German scientist to produce a “uranium machine” or as the British Major (an officious but civil Barlow Adamson) interjects, “We call it a reactor.”
Brody sets the play toward the end of the war, with ten
German scientists under Allied house arrest in a lovely English country home
with spacious grounds, gracious amenities and even a piano for music lover Werner
Heisenberg. They’re all anxious about when they’ll be able to go home but one
of the most contentious of the group complains that the house is a concentration
camp. We are immediately shocked and horrified that he would have the arrogance
to compare the hospitality he’s been afforded to Dachau. Brody never enumerates the
unspeakable tortures in the death camps but with this insult from Mr. Bagge (Kendall
Hodder as the nastiest of Nazis), he ingeniously sends our thoughts there.
The scientists berate each other for holding up
funding or for holding on to antiquated ideas or for keeping research secret.
Heisenberg (a calming Diego Arciniegas) suggests they need “an open exchange of
ideas.” Instead he’s met with demands for an apology by Kurt Diebner (a hot
headed Own Doyle) for refusing to recognize his contributions. Each scientist
is a distinct personality brought to vibrant life by a remarkable ensemble of
actors. Robert D. Murphy’s Gerlach quietly works in the garden, declaring
himself “an expert at making do.” Ross MacDonald’s Korsching is a bundle of
nerves, a cornered animal ready to bare his teeth.
Dan Whelton’s young, edgy von Weizsacher never misses
the chance to bully Ken Baltin’s senior scientist and outsider, for not having
worked on “the machine.” Director Andy Sandberg creates lots of small intrigues
for us to decipher and one big one, whether Heisenberg simply erred on his
calculations or did so on purpose: the latter would certainly get him a better
reception from his captors. And Brody gives us the moral question of the
century. Should they have left Germany
when they knew what Hitler was doing? Should they have tried to stop him? Refused
to work on the bomb? As Baltin’s von Laue sees it: “There is no high ground on
this moral dung heap.”
One of the saddest and most moving scenes in the play
takes place in the Major’s office, when he informs Otto Hahn, the eminent director
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, the man who first achieved nuclear fission,
that the Americans have dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Will Lyman gives a breathtaking
performance, distraught that it actually happened and convinced that “he” alone
is responsible. If he hadn’t split that atom’s nucleus, there would be no
atomic energy and no fission bomb. Brody has written Hahn’s part so
beautifully, that your heart goes out to him, sobbing for the 300,000 Japanese
incinerated in one single moment – of course, none of the scientists are
mourning the eight million Jews, gypsies and homosexuals murdered in the camps.
Brody’s endlessly fascinating play ends with a letter,
like a sweet coda to a piece of tumultuous music, gently and softly read by
Lyman. It comes from a Jewish colleague who, with Hahn’s help, got of out Germany in
time. She asks something of him, of her fellow scientists, something to help
their consciences. End of play.
Would they comply? I think Hahn might have done, but
not the others. This is a play I can’t stop thinking about. That’s the highest
of praise.