Atomic – a Musical Chain Reaction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NY Theater Review by Brian Scott Lipton

 

To get the puns out of the way: Is “Atomic,” the new musical about the creators of America’s first atomic weapon, either “da bomb” or a bomb? The answer is neither; this ambitious, sometimes compelling, often puzzling, and somewhat overlong work at the Acorn Theatre is hardly ready for Broadway, but it’s got enough going for it that you won’t likely be fleeing at intermission.

We initially meet the most famous personage of this oft-told story, Robert Oppenheimer (a superbly salacious Euan Morton, in faux-vaudevillian mode), who is testifying in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee years after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. But Oppenheimer quickly shifts the focus to Leo Szilard (played with great passion by the strong-voiced Jeremy Kushnier), the Hungarian physicist who first developed the chain reaction – which proved to be the key in building the A-bomb – but who would later object to the use of the bomb against Japan.

We also meet some of Szillard’s colleagues, including the legendary Enrico Fermi (the talented Jonathan Hammond), who is first seen as a womanizing Italian buffoon, the uber-earnest Edward Tveller (Randy Harrison), and the super-smart Leona Woods (a very fine Alexis Fishman), one of the few women physicists involved in the project. But one problem with “Atomic” is whether or not these characters are being given good songs (“One Day”) or bad ones (“America Amore”) by writers Philip Foxman, Danny Ginges and Gregory Bonsignore, it seems odd that such intellectual personages would actually be singing their thoughts.

Moreover, this work would have been stronger had the creators fleshed out Szillard’s seemingly saintly wife Trude (the lovely Sara Gettelfinger) or not made it so oddly coincidental that Szillard twice runs into Paul Tibbets (Harrison again, in excellent voice), an initially cocky young man, first on the day he enlists in the Air Corps and then, years later, on the day Tibbets has become a top-level pilot involved in dropping the bomb.

For all its numerous flaws, the show has been given a primarily first-rate production, with a uniformly fine cast (including David Abeles, James David Larson, and Grace Stockton), an impressive, industrial-looking set by Neil Patel, period-appropriate costumes by Emma Kinsbury, and evocative lighting by David Finn. Director Damien Gray keeps the show at a fairly steady clip, even though a few sequences (notably “The Holes in the Donuts,” an Andrews Sisters-style number for a trio of female workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory), should have been cut.

And by the time the show reaches its conclusion, one wonders why the creators simply didn’t craft a straight play about Szillard. Now, that could be a truly explosive piece of theater.

Photos: Carol Rosegg

Acorn Theater, 410 West 42nd St. NYC, 212 239-6200  www.atomicthemusical.com