Opening night on the Garrick's main stage of a brave choice of play for a brave and exciting society. Always one to push boundaries and produce work in their season which challenges, balanced with some old favourites and more well-known productions, this play by Tom Morton-Smith falls into the first category and tells the true story of who has been dubbed 'the father of the atom bomb'. It's a lengthy affair, with the first half lasting a full 90 minutes, and the final curtain was at 10:35pm this evening, but stick with it, the long first half, full of exposition and background information, told in the form of extremely short vignettes, swapping and changing location quicker than a flash, gives us much we need to know in order to understand the denouement. Act 2 is certainly more satisfying. It is an interesting play, and directors John Cunningham and Carole Carr managed to sustain our interest in the somewhat wordy and disjointed script through a myriad short scenes, many colourful characters, and of course the historical factuality. It could have been flat and devoid of variation, and the technical and scientific aspects could have bamboozled and taken precedence, and indeed on both scores the play was in danger a few times of allowing these things to happen, but with some deft acting skills from a fully ensemble cast (including two understudies on this their opening night), both pitfalls were happily avoided. Played out on a mostly bare stage with just outlines of the Los Alamos facility and the looming danger of what was to come in black silhouette to the rear, omnipresent, but never focus-pulling. The constant wheeling in and out of furniture etc for each tiny scene became not only predictable but added unnecessary seconds to an already overlong play. The use of a large screen centre stage to display each scenes location and year, along with relevant photos (actual archive photos by the looks of them) was indeed very helpful, although the science stuff was completely beyond me!
Overall, this was an engaging play, sensibly portrayed by a talented cast who worked excellently together and provided a most interesting story (some of which was completely new to me) and all deserve much credit. A special mention needs perhaps to go to Scarlet Newton as Jean Tatlock, the soon-to-be wife of Robert Oppenheimer. Her stage presence, command of the stage, her role, and situations around her was taken with adroit elan. I also enjoyed the performance of Mark Jephcott, as the General Groves. Vocally very pleasing, using a lovely projection and enunciation; something which I am very hot on. And finally, I co0uld not possibly leave the review without mentioning the protagonist himself, Robert "Oppie" Oppenheimer, played in this production by Jonathan Higgs. Underplaying his role with a rather self-deprecating manner in both mannerisms and voice, it sometimes became quite difficult to see him as a leader and figure of authority. I wonder, was this based on historical research and real-life characterisation or was this the actor's / director's own choice? Either way it made for a very interesting juxtaposition between the driving forces throughout, allowing some of the smaller cameo roles more prominence because of it. I enjoyed this and applaud this.
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