J. Robert Oppenheimer was a complex
cove. A serial womaniser, he nevertheless remained detached to the
point of offering his and his wife’s baby for adoption by one of his
lovers. A convinced socialist, he dropped all his active interest in
left-wing ideology as soon as he was accepted for the Manhattan Project
of designing and building an atomic bomb; yet he continued to attempt
to defend numerous friends and colleagues with similar views, some of
whom he had converted himself.
Above all, Tom Morton-Smith’s play vigorously rebuts the prevalent
image of Oppenheimer as tortured with guilt for having brought such a
horrifically destructive force into the world. Yes, his famous
quotation from the
Bhagavad Gita
– “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” – ends the play, and it
is clear that he felt disgust with himself and possibly a kind of
regret, but not a shred of repentance. As with his communism,
Oppenheimer was clear and wholehearted in his pragmatic acceptance that
developing the A-bomb was necessary to forestall the Nazis and defeat
fascism, and then likewise with the Japanese. Nor was the mere threat
sufficient: he is shown arguing that “It has to be used, and used on
people” to make the point. Compared to all these contradictions,
dramatising the actual nuclear physics is a doddle.
Angus Jackson’s RSC production faces all these difficulties head-on and
generally negotiates a way through them, but he and his cast cannot
overcome the sheer volume of material presented. Catherine Steadman is
compelling as Oppenheimer’s sometime lover Jean Tatlock, and Ben Allen
as Edward Teller, alternating arguments with Oppenheimer about
proceeding straight to the development of a hydrogen bomb with piano
performances from Beethoven to boogie-woogie. However, John Heffernan
in the title role has a raw deal. However heroically he deals with all
the barrowloads of biography and science, he has only the occasional
opportunity to give an emotionally animated performance; Oppenheimer’s
default setting is cold-fish. Hedydd Dylan as his wife Jackie is even
more unfortunate: whenever she leaves off using contractions in her
speech, you can tell that Morton-Smith is moving into a passage of
undigested rhetoric. It’s a noble experiment, but like the bomb itself
it doesn’t set the atmosphere alight.
Written for the Financial
Times.