FISSION

by cindy lou johnson

directed by kimberly colburn

cast:

meitner: lea seaton

lise: eliza pagelle

otto han: sam lilja

elizabeth shiemann, margarethe bohr: adell ehrhorn

max planck: kevin symons

kurt hess, ernst rhutherford, neils bohr, registar: patrick michael kilby

scnpf playbill

*the stage before the audience arrived at greenville theatre, sc.*

the prompt reader had a lot to lead us through on this one, and i’d love to hear the broadway pitch meeting for this one. somehow (if i remember, it’s been, like eleven whole days since i’ve seen the show), there’s a clock that tells us when and where we are that rotates. (or, a projection at least.)

we have both an elder version of lise meitner, as well as lise as she’s living her story. (which covers at least 40 years—so….i dunno how they’d plan to do that full-on production-scale??)

it MIGHT be unnecessary double-casting, but it was interesting enough to speculate upon from the comfort of my velvet theatre seat. so perhaps the full production could/would justify it/make the choice more clearly?

of course, we often hear a version of the question: “if you could tell your younger self anything, what would you say?”

and the thing that “elder’ lise meitner was most surprised by was how brazen the younger iteration of herself was.

and a good thing, too.

her life wasn’t easy.

she was a female physicist.

she wanted to study in germany after getting her doctorate in… i don’t remember. somewhere else in europe.

she had to convince the school to let her study with some famous science guy. and they made her partner with a chemist for her research.

who put HIS name on all their papers.

stuff happens stuff happens…

and then, THE WAR.

and lise was ethnically jewish.

so… yeah. she had to escape germany.

leave the “home” of her lab.

and her (male) colleagues had to remain compliant, or… lose their jobs. their funding. their scientific research.

and the only way she escaped germany was by being that “invisible” woman. a (pretend) wife. without a train ticket.

the end of the play was mostly just that lise didn’t get credit for discovering how to split an atom. BUT, after seeing OPPENHEIMER, does anyone WANT credit for that? idk. but i guess they scrubbed her name from the scientific/historical record. but somebody found it or this play wouldn’t exist, right?

so i’m glad i saw the show, but historical fiction isn’t my favorite genre of story. which is merely a personal preference. so are real stories important? of course. would i have gone to see this WW2/math history show if i had to choose between this and, i dunno, seeing aaron tveit in MOULIN ROUGE? (well, if you found your way to my blog, i’m expecting you know the answer to that one.) ;)

so aside from writing down “wanting to stab OTTO after nobel/mentor” (??) i mostly just wrote down some lines from the script. (which, again, i’d gotten to read some of the scenes ahead of time before auditioning for this year’s scnpf; this script, at least the two scenes i’d read before, also tightened/improved between then and this staged reading! yay!)

*i will never get over* ***eliza pagelle****’s performance in* **ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE***, a musical reading i saw at 2024’s scnpf; and yes, bottom center IS indeed “councilman dexhart” from* parks & rec. ;)

so here are some quotes i scribbled down during the show for you to enjoy (presenting them here, not in the order they appear in the show, to maintain the mystery and with full hopes you get to see it LIVE & full-production someday!):

“we are scientists—if we don’t think, who will?”

“women aren’t allowed in the lab—it’s extremely dangerous for women—their hair would catch fire.”

“ah! so you are the lady in the woodshed.”

“physics is the quest for the ultimate truth.”

“you have to tell me—was my life beautiful?”

“the only thing he made clear is that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“stay curious. trust yourself.”

“i don’t know how not to be who i am.”

“what do my grandparents have to do with physics?”

“all odds have taken a turn for the worst.”

“trying to believe the one while i was feeling the other.”

“i’m try to avoid complimenting you, but you can’t be replaced.”

“there’s nothing to explain—everything’s beyond comprehension.”

“the impossible had happened.”

may it never be again.

Learn more about scnpf

as ever, thanks to shelley and west and ALL the scnpf staff and volunteers for bringing such NEW art (in progress) to us right here in greenville, sc.

thanks to all the volunteers, casts, crews, and theatre venues for hosting and presenting and bringing the tears and the laughters.

i can’t wait for the 2027 announcements! :)

a "one of a kind hummer" scrubbed from the scientific record. you know: because she was a lady.