A disturbing and dangerously topical play about one of the most controversial aspects of contemporary history, performed on the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
At the core of Oppenheimer's team that built the first atomic bomb was a group of Hungarian Jews who all together attended three Budapest high schools. According to Martin Weiss in Echo 24: "There were so many Hungarian Jews born in Budapest between 1890 and 1920 in nuclear research and cutting-edge mathematics and physics that someone later came up with the theory that Martian explorers were staying in Budapest at the time, and they managed to produce several offspring before they judged the Earth uninteresting and withdrew."
The dramatic story of the birth of the most destructive weapon ever created by mankind, with elements of absurdist black comedy. It is 1938 and Robert Oppenheimer, Leó Szilárd and other Hungarian Jewish physicists are fleeing Nazi Europe. Knowing that Hitler may be close to constructing the ultimate weapon that will destroy the world, the scientists band together and try to win the race against time in a New York laboratory. Who will be the first to invent the atomic bomb? And who will preserve the last vestiges of humanity? How hard is the decision to kill hundreds of thousands of people with a new bomb and end a bloody war quickly, or not to use the bomb and let many times more die in the continuing fighting? How to deal with such a huge responsibility? Who were the people who built the most devastating weapon in history and how did they decide?
Following the worldwide success of Dynasty - Lehman Brothers, Italian playwright Stefano Massini comes up with another gripping work combining an epic narrative style with witty, snappy dialogue, irony and suspense.
directed by: Michal Lang
premiere: 30. 5. 2025