The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer

by Carson Kreitzer

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"J. Robert Oppenheimer's rise and fall erupt in this kaleidoscopic play exploring questions of faith, conscience, and the consequences of the never-ending pursuit of knowledge. Act One: Math. The fevered wartime drive to build the first nuclear weapon, by a collection of previously academic theoretical physicists, many of them Jews fleeing Hitler's Germany. Success turns to horror when "the Gadget" is dropped, first on Hiroshima, then Nagasaki. Act Two: Aftermath. Oppenheimer confronts his show more conscience; Russia turns from ally to enemy. The Red scare is in full swing as we shift to the courtroom. Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty, drinks; J. Edger Hoover does the dance of the seven veils; and the Father of the Atomic Bomb has his security clearance revoked, cast out of the world he helped create. In a flash that is the end of his life, J. Robert Oppenheimer paces the desert of the Trinity Test Site, wrestling with his memories and one scary, sexy, unpredictable demon: Lilith, Hebrew mythology's first woman, cast out of Eden for refusing to behave. Hissing in his ear, she goads him to admit what he refuses to acknowledge: an anger that mirrors her own. "Oppie" is haunted by actions, decisions, and a trinity of women--mother, wife Kitty, and lover, Jean Tatlock. Her suicide is never far from his mind; her Communist ties are never far from the government's."--Publisher's website. show less

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Devil_llama 1,923 reviews

This rather surreal, absurdist play is merely the latest I have read in a long line of anti-scientist plays, and one in which the subject has been a frequent appearance. By turns boring and fascinating, working through a series of flashbacks and vignettes, it has a promise it never actually delivered. The characters come across more as cardboard cutouts than people, and the promise of ethical soul-searching is only touched on, and in such a way that it makes it appear that scientists as a group range the gamut of emotion from amoral to immoral, without ever touching on an ethical thought. Overall, a disappointment that still managed to have some really good moments. The traces of anti-Semitism in the writing (pointing out repeatedly show more that the developers of the A-bomb were mostly Jewish) leaves a bad taste in the mouth. show less

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