Farm Hall E-Book

Katherine Moar

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

'It was never about the Reich or the war. It was about physics.' Summer 1945. Hitler is dead, but the war in the Pacific rages on. When six of Germany's top nuclear scientists – including three Nobel Prize winners – are detained by Allied forces at a stately home in the Cambridgeshire countryside, they find themselves shut off from the outside world. Their only distractions are board games, a broken piano and a copy of Blithe Spirit. But as the months go by, their attention turns to the ongoing war and thoughts of their broken homeland. The scientists' tranquil summer is shattered by the inconceivable news that the Americans have succeeded where the Germans have failed: the United States has not only built an atomic bomb, but they have used one against Japan. Katherine Moar's captivating debut play Farm Hall dramatises the true story recorded inside the bugged walls of the actual Farm Hall between July 1945 and January 1946. It was premiered at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in March 2023, before transferring to the Theatre Royal Bath, directed by Stephen Unwin. It transferred to the West End's Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 2024.

Leseprobe

Katherine Moar

FARM HALL

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production Details

Dedication

Epigraph

Summary

Characters

Note on Play

Farm Hall

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Farm Hall was first performed at theJermyn Street Theatre on 9 March 2023, with the following cast:

BAGGE

Archie Backhouse

WEIZSÄCKER

Daniel Boyd

HEISENBERG

Alan Cox

DIEBNER

Julius D’Silva

HAHN

Forbes Masson

VON LAUE

David Yelland

Director

Stephen Unwin

Set and Costume Designer

Ceci Calf

Lighting Designer

Ben Ormerod

Sound Designer

John Leonard

Casting Director

Ginny Schiller CDG

Assistant Director

Millie Gaston

Production Manager

Lucy Mewis-Mckerrow

Stage Manager

Daisy Francis-Bryden

Assistant Stage Manager

Fae Hochgemuth

Costume Supervisor

Lauren Savill

Lighting Programmer

Jodie Underwood

Set Construction

Overflow Events Ltd.

Production Technician

Tom McCreadie

PR

David Burns

For my parents, Todd, and Stephen Unwin

‘The story of Farm Hall is another complete play in itself.’

Michael Frayn in his postscript to Copenhagen

Summary

Summer 1945. Hitler is dead. Germany is defeated. The war in the Pacific rages on.

In England, six of Germany’s foremost scientists are detained following their capture by Allied forces. They are Hitler’s Uranium Club, the men tasked with producing an atomic bomb for the Nazis.

Stowed safely in Farm Hall, a stately home nestled in a quiet corner of the Cambridgeshire countryside, these ‘guests’ of His Majesty are forced to entertain themselves. Removed from the chaos of war and convinced of their scientific superiority, they while away the hours playing chess, restoring a broken piano, and rehearsing an all-male amateur production of Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit.

But the war and the world cannot be shut out forever. The guests’ tranquil summer is shattered by the revelation that the unthinkable has occurred, that the Americans have succeeded where the Germans have failed, that the United States has not only built an atomic bomb, but has used one against Japan…

During their seven-month detainment, unbeknownst to its occupants, almost every inch of Farm Hall was bugged. The guests’ recorded conversations were translated, transcribed and, finally, in 1992, declassified and published as The Farm Hall Transcripts. This play is inspired by The Farm Hall Transcripts and by true events that occurred at Farm Hall between July 1945 and January 1946.

Characters

VON LAUE, late sixties. An open objector to Nazism. Played no role in Hitler’s Uranium Club. Won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1914 for the discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals

DIEBNER, early forties. The head of Hitler’s Uranium Club when it was under the control of the Army Ordnance Office. Nazi Party member

HEISENBERG, early forties. Replaced Kurt Diebner as the symbolic leader of Hitler’s Uranium Club when the army ceded control to the Reich Research Council. He won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for ‘the creation of quantum mechanics’

WEIZSÄCKER, early thirties. Heisenberg’s close friend and colleague. Member of the prominent Weizsäcker family. His father served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1943, and as its Ambassador to the Holy See from 1943 to 1945. His younger brother would serve as President of Germany between 1984 and 1994

BAGGE, early thirties. Heisenberg’s former student. Nazi Party member. According to Heisenberg, Bagge came from a ‘proletarian family’

HAHN, early sixties. Discovered nuclear fission, the process that makes an atomic bomb possible. He received the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this discovery. Anti-Nazi

Note on Play

The Uranverein or ‘Uranium Club’ was the name given to the project to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Broadly, there were two streams of activity. The first was led by Kurt Diebner and administered by the Army Ordnance Office. When it became clear that the Uranverein would not make a decisive contribution to ending the war, the army ceded control of the project to the Reich Research Council and Werner Heisenberg.