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Friday, March 29, 2024

Atomic: When “Yiddishe Kups” Collide

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Leo and Sarah discuss worries over their family still living in Hitler's Germany.
Leo and Sarah discuss worries over their family still living in Hitler’s Germany.
From Australia, for a limited run comes Atomic, a story about the development of the first Atomic bomb by a group of scientists, many Jewish, and the program known as the Manhattan Project. The play opens with Tony nominee (for his performance as Boy George in Taboo) Euan Morton as Robert Oppenheimer, perhaps the best known member of the scientific group, giving testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.   Oppenheimer states that if he is the father of the atomic bomb, then Leo Szilard, played by Jeremy Kushnier, is its prodigal son.  If there are moments in the show when you feel like you at an early production of “Rent”, it may be because Kushnier played Roger in that show for a time. He has also appeared on Broadway in Jesus Christ Superstar, Jersey boys, and in Footloose as Ren.  Trude Weiss Szilard, Leo’s loving and trusting wife, is played by Sara Gettelfinger whose Broadway credits include A Free Man of Color, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Nine.

The musically talented cast, through rock opera drama, tells the story of the bomb as it was developed during WWII. The Allied scientific community were then under the impression that they were racing Germany in a fight for the existence of the Western world.  Leo and Trude have great anxiety for the family they left behind in Germany and Leo has cause for concern for the projects urgency as he is familiar with the brilliance of one his students who is engaged in this fatal race on the German side.  A few moments of needed comic relief come from Jonathan Hammond, playing (perhaps a bit too stereotypically) the Italian lothario, Enrico Fermi, another great scientist engaged in the project.

Leo’s patents are the building blocks upon which the project moves forward, Knowing the danger the danger being introduced to the world, he is ready to stop when the war comes to an end. However, can he control this cat once it’s out of the bag?  Determined to benefit mankind with his talents, he turns his attentions elsewhere as progress on the most deadly experiment perhaps ever conducted continues to the end we are so familiar with.   With Harry Truman in the White House, the scientific-military establishment pushes to see a return on their tremendously expensive experiment.  The moral ramifications of actually dropping these bombs, without warning, on a civilian population are addressed without much clarity amongst the team.

This was to have been a weapon that in its monstrous deadliness would deter man from ever engaging in all out war again.  With rational people as decision makers that could be the case.  Time will tell.

Book and lyrics – Danny Ginges, Gregory Bonsignore

Music and lyrics by Philip Foxman,

Direction – Damien Gray

Choreography – Dean Walsh,

Music direction – Andrew Peterson

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