Operation Epsilon, Southwark Playhouse (Elephant), London
Hot on the heels of Oppenheimer, comes a reverse story —German physicists and two chemists who are all held together in a variety of Allied locations as World War Two continues. What does it all mean, for them, for their families, for science, for their reputations, for their careers?
In a beautiful and detailed open-plan doll’s house of a set, a group of German scientists are forced or politely encouraged to live in an English country house (or farm). They can enjoy the surrounding gardens and woods, but no further — and not engage in communication or escape plans. Action by one will impact all of them. With clever use of spotlighting and tableau we start to learn who each of these scientists are and through the secret narrative of their ‘keeper’, the affable Major T.H. Rittner (Simon Bubb). Only Major Rittner keeps disappearing off — to write in notes and to make recordings in secret in his office, of his observations of the ten. A joke is made by one of them at the beginning of the play — that the British do not know the ways of the Gestapo — no bugs or hidden microphones here!
As the play develops we see cabin fever stepping up — the mental and emotional twists and turns as they start to wonder about the timeframe of things, when they will hear from or see their families again, how the War is progressing and why they’re there. Rittner sizes them up and assesses them, and has individual meetings at points with one or two, such as sharing the news that the Americans have dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and that they are free to see their families again, before sharing news with the wider group. We also see how they deal with the time — in playing the piano, eating and drinking, forming supportive or power-broking friendships, joking, running, gardening or trying to work out where their calculations went wrong, stopping them from creating the bomb first.
When I saw the play, Israel had just been attacked by Hamas and hostages taken. Somehow the ethical considerations of the play seemed to be in sharper relief — the group start to consider whether they can claim to be non-Nazi, regime saboteurs, heroic, ethical, that perhaps it is a good thing and to their advantage that their results failed. How can it be they wonder — how could the Americans have possibly have amassed enough uranium? What went wrong or perhaps right? Morally vacillating and actually feeling quite smug about their ‘failure’ it is one of the chemists who calls everyone out, exposes their passivity as no resistance at all and states plainly that they were all culpable. In not leaving, in not standing up to the regime (apart from assisting one or two Jewish colleagues or friends known to them personally), they have no moral or ethical right to claim anti-Nazi stances; that their bigger failure was in seeing an evil regime and choosing careers, status, passiveness, waiting for it to end, in claiming to be scientists and therefore immune to the wider social and cultural climate, in being active in everything and anything apart from speaking up and actively fighting Hitler and his like. If we are not active, then we are all culpable (like it or not). Tussling with their pride and ambitions, plus how they wish to be perceived, we see these ideas worked out in practice as the scientists repeatedly get pledges and statements to agree to and sign. What will they choose — individually and collectively? How do you de-Nazify if people are in heavy denial?
Surprisingly the play ends with the scientists being allowed to go free, to return to their families. We’re not sure what the future holds for them as a quartered Germany and Berlin await them — and the Cold War. Heading out into the snowy British countryside, the scientists begin to mourn their pampered protection, forgetting the personality clashes and ethical challenges along the way.
One of them, Otto Hahn (Nathaniel Parker) wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for nuclear fission, which seems bizarre given the situation they’re in — they even have a party to celebrate and invite Rittner along for a drink. Hahn and his ‘minder’ Rittner then have the equally bizarre situation of how to proceed. On one hand Rittner encourages Hahn to accept the prize, but regretfully reply that he is unable to attend (without mentioning his imprisonment). Throughout we see Rittner’s attempts to maintain calm professional relationships with increasingly frustrated and hysterical captives (in some cases).
It turns out that there were bugs and they were being monitored for what they knew about the German atomic/nuclear programme. Never underestimate the British! On a more poignant note, Hahn receives a letter from his Jewish colleague Lisa, whom he helped escape to Switzerland, which calls him out, reminds him not to look away and to face up to the national shame as well as personal responsibility. That everyone was culpable, no matter the degree, and no matter in how convoluted a manner they came to be part of the Party or system; (even in passively carrying on as usual and thinking themselves not a part of it). Yes we may have cared about or helped the ones we knew, but the thousands of dead we didn’t know about — what about them? In the end the scientists and we the audience are challenged to care about the people we don’t know.
All I could think of was the very famous poem:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
A brilliant ensemble piece, the two level doll’s house staging works well as we get a sense of how they relate communally and the more private friendships developing in people’s rooms. When the chalk broke or a chair was knocked over on entrance, the ad-libbing and lack of reaction was phenomenal. The unique layout of the Southwark Playhouse (Elephant) means that you are almost in the play and in the conversations — it’s very intimate. Even if you dislike science or Oppenheimer, this play draws you into questions of culpability, responsibility, ethics, ‘who cares’ in remarkable ways, partly due to the excellent cast and partly due to being so close to the actors.
