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Express takes on ‘Oppenheimer’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer.” Through May 7. The verdict: A tragedy for all humanity.
In detailing the tormented psyche of the man who created the atomic bomb, Carson Kreitzer’s “The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer” is a brilliant colossus. As such, it is certain to be a staggering bore for many.
So take a thermos of espresso to Actor’s Express and a willingness to reflect upon the dazzling tedium. Strongly acted and seamlessly directed by Jasson Minadakis, this ambitious, poetic, bone-chilling piece of theater demands a great deal from its audience.
That’s the price you pay for Art sometimes.
“Oppenheimer” is a rambling intellectual exercise that imagines a conversation between Oppenheimer (astutely played by John Ammerman) and Lilith (Tess Malis Kincaid), the woman who, according to Judaic folklore, was ejected from the Garden of Eden for refusing to submit to Adam. It’s an ambitious piece of work that dares to riff on T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock.”
You know what they say about a woman scorned?
As portrayed by the strutting, hissing Kincaid, Lilith is not a well queen of the damned. Smudged all over with mud, she vamps it up in a catsuit on a runway that surrounds the entire room —- so that she’s literally always there to remind Oppenheimer that he’s responsible for the massacre of thousands of Japanese.
When the government ostracizes Oppenheimer for his Communist sympathies, when he’s dying from throat cancer, when he’s all alone with the horror of creating the ultimate instrument of death, when he cheats on his wife and his beautiful lover commits suicide, Lilith purrs to him that this —- this, Oppy —- is what it’s like to be banished to hell.
For all its plodding, what the play does so well is condemn Oppenheimer and make him a sympathetic character. He’s fallen. But, unlike Lilith, he’s human. He was ashamed of his Jewishness, married to a Communist and recruited by the government to take Hitler down. But even after the Nazis were crushed, the killing continued in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The tragedy of Oppenheimer is that he behaved badly, under great pressure, without considering the consequences.
In portraying the United States as a bully that lies to its people, commits mass murder and refuses to take responsibility for its atrocities, the 2003 play feels very much of our time. We can feel the pain of Europe, but we can’t quite fathom the horror of Japan or Iraq because it’s so “over there.” If it’s so over there, then why are we so afraid? Revenge is not higher ground.
Kreitzer is a writer with something remarkable to say. She just hasn’t quite figured out how to make such complex political material as entertaining and funny as, say, Tony Kushner. Nor has Minadakis done much to leaven the gloom.
So thank goodness for the delicious humor of Kathleen Wattis, who turns Kitty Oppenheimer into a martini-swilling figure of fashion, fun and bite. And for the silly coup de theatre involving J. Edgar Hoover (Theo Harness) and a dance of the seven veils. And the veddy British fellow (Joe Sykes) who offers toffees as he tries to obfuscate the spy scandal that may have leaked nuclear secrets to the Soviets. “So sorry,” he says glibly.
Set designer Kat Conley, costume artist English Toole and lighting/sound director Joseph P. Monaghan III have sculpted a visual and aural world that is elemental and reflective.
The bombs you hear in this production echo like the noisy gongs of Armageddon. What Oppenheimer unleashed at Los Alamos will have repercussions for all time.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Also: 2 p.m. April 3 and 24; 5 p.m. April 10, 17 and May 1. Through May 7. $21.50-$26.75. Actor’s Express, King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St., Atlanta. 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com.
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