Nominee - Best New Play, WhatsOnStage Awards 2015 / #3 - Time Out London Top 15 Plays of 2015 / #7 - Guardian Top Ten Plays 2015 / Daily Telegraph Best Plays of 2015

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1939: fascism spreads across Europe, Franco marches on Barcelona and two German chemists discover the processes of atomic fission. In Berkeley, California, theoretical physicists recognise the horrendous potential of this new science: a weapon that draws its power from the very building blocks of the universe. The ambitious and charismatic J Robert Oppenheimer finds himself uniquely placed to spearhead the largest scientific undertaking in all of human history.

Struggling to cast off his radical past and thrust into a position of power and authority, Oppenheimer races to win the 'battle of the laboratories' and create a weapon so devastating that, with the detonation of a single device, it would bring about an end not just to the Second World War but to all war.

As the political situation darkens, Tom Morton-Smith's new play takes us into the heart of the Manhattan Project and explores the tension between the scientific advances that will shape our understanding of the fabric of the universe, and the justification of their use during wartime, revealing the personal cost of making history.

PRODUCTION HISTORY

First performed at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 15th January to March 7th 2015, before transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre, London, March 27th to May 23rd 2015. Royal Shakespeare Company, dir: Angus Jackson.

American Premiere: Los Angeles, October 6th to December 30th 2018. Rogue Machine Theatre, dir: John Perrin Flynn.

““Oppenheimer’s stature is not in question, but do we have a playwright big enough to depict him?” That was the question posed by critic Eric Bentley in 1969. The answer has been found in the shape of Tom Morton-Smith, a 34-year-old dramatist with a handful of fringe credits, who has come up with this massively impressive three-hour play for the RSC: one that shows the father of the atomic bomb and leader of America’s Manhattan project to be a genuinely tragic hero. ★★★★★”

— Michael Billington, Guardian

“A blast from start to finish . . . Tom Morton-Smith’s epic new play . . . ambitious in the very best way . . . it really delivers its payload in its final phase, as Oppenheimer finally rejects his humanity in favour of doing something truly inhuman to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If ‘Oppenheimer’ humanises the story of the bomb, then it also humanises those it killed, clawing them back from statistic to tragedy. ★★★★★”

— Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out London

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