The Stage

Albert’s Boy

Published Thursday 28 July 2005 at 17:00 by Aleks Sierz

What are the ethics of mass destruction? In 22-year-old James Graham’s second play, it is 1953 and an aged Albert Einstein, in his cluttered Princeton study, looks back with guilt at his role in the development of the atom bomb, which ended the Second World War by killing 300,000 people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Visited by Peter Bucky, a family friend and Korean War veteran, Einstein gradually realises that his failure to make any headway in his scientific quest for the unified field theory, which would reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics, is due to mental paralysis brought on by guilt.

Then, late one night, the two men argue it out. Bucky’s view is vividly coloured by his direct experience of being wounded in war and he passionately advocates using the bomb as a way of saving soldiers’ lives. By contrast, Einstein is a pacifist and remains obsessed by his imagination of the horrific effects of a nuclear explosion on civilians.

Although the play has a rather plodding plot and lacks the imaginative brio of, for example, Terry Johnson’s Insignificance, its debate is clear and the conflict between the two men is lucidly realised. Graham avoids the mad-scientist clichés and his Einstein is preoccupied by moral responsibility rather than comically absent-minded. Directed by Max Lewendel, on Alex Marker’s realistic set, Albert’s Boy offers Victor Spinetti the chance to give a masterclass, ably supported by Gerard Monaco, in acting that radiates warmth and is emotionally convincing. Fringe theatre at its best.