Farm Hall @ Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London

Scientists, German scientists (physicists, nuclear physicists and chemists), endure discreet house arrest by the British following the surrender of Germany in 1945. Only the war in the East continues, and from the captive scientists point of view, an uncertain race to develop a nuclear weapon.

Unlike Operation Epsilon at Southwark Playhouse, we only encounter six German scientists and the cabin-fever they’re experiencing in trying to do something out of nothing. They read, play piano, write redacted letters to their family, garden, chat and bicker, play board games , get bored of the board games (and each other) — and eventually get to listen to a radio broadcast. They think maybe the British are listening into them to find out what they know, but aren’t sure. Perhaps the British are too old fashioned, genteel or stupid to do such a thing. But then the scientists have to work out, individually and collectively, what they know, how culpable they are and what they’re prepared to admit to knowing to the British.

Varying in age, power and influence, career stage, Katherine Moar’s drama gets us to really think about whether scientists can ever be neutral, ‘just scientists doing science’, or how politically/ethically culpable they are when their employer/governmental regime turns fascist and murderously ethnic cleansing. Are scientists just scientists working away in their labs regardless or are they as guilty as those who ran the murder camps because of what their work contributed to creating?

We watch them wax lyrical and imagine, admiring American popular culture (recreating films) and more perplexed by British culture (reading Coward’s Blithe Spirit). Class, rank and personal antagonism comes through well in the play as they form cliques, include and exclude, bicker amongst themselves, and imaginatively speculate with ‘what if?…’ moments.

Their imperialism and anti-Slavism can’t help but keep bubbling, no matter how some protest at being global citizens. Shown in one wild imagining where a future for the Jewish German scientists were allowed to stay, by the regime, and work together with their colleagues to create a better nuclear bomb for Hitler. Bleakly funny — at the same time, it makes you feel ill. Same when they get to imaging if they’d been successful in creating a bomb, first, and ponder whether London or Southampton would have made a better target…Or Russia. What therefore have they actually learnt or are they in denial?

Forbess Masson’s Hahn maybe learns the most as he weeps inconsolably on learning that his science was used to create horror in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He also seeks to make peace between the disgruntled and warring factions amongst his colleagues.

It’s interesting to watch too to see how much each scientist will admit to. Heisenberg (Alan Cox) and David Yelland’s Von Laue had impressive careers behind them, social clout and political influence. (Though much of this seems to be done by their mother’s). Diebner (Julius D’Silva) is looked down upon for being actively Nazi. Bagge (Archie Backhouse) can’t stand Diebner to the point of leaving the room when he enters and desperately trying to avoid playing chess with him. Hahn and Von Laue rebuild the broken piano — doing the work which no-one else will do — for the greater good of all.

The first Act explodes into shocked stillness and silence as they learn that the Americans have got there first — and not only created a nuclear weapon, but used it in war. The second Act, unpeeling like the wall paper on the walls behind them, explores why the Germans under Hitler’s regime didn’t get there first? Underfunding? The Fuhrer’s phallic obsession with rockets and lack of understanding of what nuclear fission could mean? The robbing of the country of its greatest minds (such as Einstein) through persecuting and murdering its Jewish German intelligentsia, or attempting to, forcing them to flee. And Heisenberg attempts to do the calculations to make it work.

Bagge explodes with worry as the Russians encroach near to where his loved ones are. Unlike the others, he’s poor and doesn’t have the clout or influence to get them moved to places of safety. Trying to work out what’s going on through redacted newspapers and no radio for a time leads them to theoretical scientific problems, counting door knobs and botanical studies focused on all the plants in the garden.

Daniel Boyd’s Weizsäker is charming and affable, yet distances himself from his actions and party involvement due to the fact that his family are rich — and currently based in Switzerland. Perhaps, the play suggests, this comfortable (for him) removal from the consequences of his actions allows him to speculate wildly. He may love American movies and heartily proclaim himself a citizen of the world, but his world doesn’t include Russia. And in a sense, they’re all still stuck where they were, not recognising what they’ve done — or how to move forward. At the same time, at points, they express guilt, disbelief, regret, wordlessness for the horrors which have engulfed Germany and the world.

Diebner struggles with filling his time with unenjoyable books and tasks, small talk and social niceties — at the same time being ostracised by many of his colleagues. Yet even he can show a sense of humour, crafting the perfect redacted letter home to ‘Hitler’ without mentioning the war, who he’s with or the localised weather conditions.

The big stage (and fairly flat staging) reduce the sense of claustrophobia and living on top of each other that a smaller theatre would induce. However, the cast demonstrate the awkwardness of being with each other (and feeling watched) by moving about between chairs and tables, going in and out of the door, but never — until the end — leaving.

Hahn gets the Nobel peaceprize for his work — and the irony ramps up here as the scientists decide (collectively) that their work was going into develop nuclear power for peace, not a weapon of war. Therefore they have still come first, ‘won’ and indeed triumphed, virtue signalling before virtue signalling was even a thing. And what, (and who) is rebuilding Germany — and what are they creating?

Tightly acted, we’re left with more questions than answers and left to think for ourselves. Unlike Operation Epsilon (Southwark Playhouse), the play is told entirely from the characters’ points of view (within their isolated state). Therefore, we only get their version of things — their prejudices and classicism and literal in-house bickering. You have to know that the British are listening in as they stay in seclusion and not as stupid or old-fashioned as suspected to see the bigger picture irony — and horror.

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For more history about Farm Hall — https://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/2023/03/the-history-of-farm-hall/