Full casting is announced today for Alan Brody’s award-winning play Operation Epsilon at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, which opens on 20 September, with previews from 15 September and runs until 21 October 2023.
Andy Sandberg directs an ensemble cast of eleven that includes Nicholas Armfield (Horst Korsching), Jamie Bogyo (Carl Friederich von Weizsäcker), Simon Bubb (Major T.H. Rittner), Simon Chandler (Max von Laue), Matthew Duckett (Erich Bagge), Jake Mann (Karl Wirtz), Olivier Award winner Nathaniel Parker (Otto Hahn), Peter Prentice (Paul Harteck), Leighton Pugh (Walter Gerlach), Simon Rhodes (Kurt Diebner), and Gyuri Sarossy (Werner Heisenberg). Operation Epsilon is produced by Ellen Berman.
Inspired by actual transcripts that were secretly recorded and then held classified for many decades, Operation Epsilon tells the true story of Germany’s ten foremost nuclear scientists who were rounded up and held captive in England by the British and American forces toward the end of World War II, as the Manhattan Project forged ahead in America.
This thought-provoking play makes its UK première at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the critically acclaimed US production. Operation Epsilon shines a light on the ethical complexity of scientific discovery…and its potential for catastrophic consequences.
It’s the close of World War II – the dawn of the atomic age. The Allies have captured Germany’s ten foremost nuclear scientists and sequestered them deep in the English countryside to ascertain the answer to a life-or-death question: how close are the Nazis to making an atomic bomb? The world stands on the precipice of creation and destruction, bound by the gravity of their decisions which hold the power to change the course of history.
Based on actual transcripts of secretly recorded conversations and telling the other side of the Oppenheimer story – Alan Brody’s gripping play delves into the darkest corners of human ingenuity, exploring the intimate conflict within the hearts and minds of luminaries with unimaginable power. A once-classified true story buried in the archives amidst an epic war, Operation Epsilon is a poignant, thrilling exploration of the ties that bind us to our actions, our decisions, and one another.
