Friedrich Drrenmatt wrote The Physicists in 1961 when the threat of nuclear extermination loomed heavily on the horizon. The same fear no longer exists today, but 26-year-old Wang Jiannan, the National Theater of China's youngest director, says the classic comedy still conveys a poignant message.
"Drrenmatt's comedy is very clever, and the situation he puts his characters in is ingenious and amusing," Wang says.
"The moral dilemma of the modern scientist no longer excites quite as much as it did at the height of the Cold War, but it is still a very effective play."
The young director casts a group of veteran actors to perform the drama: Li Jianyi as Johann Mobius; Du Zhengqing as Isaac Newton, and Wang Guoqiang as Albert Einstein.
"The play is a comment on morals of science in a world full of unscrupulous politicians," says Wang.
The drama begins with a murder in a mental asylum. A patient, who believes he is Einstein, has murdered a nurse but the investigation is largely superficial. However, as the inspector follows the clues, he discovers an earlier murder of another nurse by a patient, who believes he is Newton. A third patient, who claims to see visions of King Solomon, also sees murder as the only way to protect his secret. As the story develops, it becomes clear that nothing is what it seems.
"Drrenmatt wrote the drama at the time that science seemed to have outstripped man's ability to utilize it for the betterment of humanity," says Wang.
"The Cold War, the arms race and policy of MAD (mutually assured destruction) suggested that instead science was too easily being used for bad-indeed, literally world-threatening - ends.
"Man could not be trusted with the knowledge that physicists were able to discover."
Date: 7:30 pm, through to Dec 14
Venue: Dongdansantiao, East of the Oriental Plaza, Beijing
Booking: 6417-0068
(China Daily December 5, 2008)
