INDRA’S NET THEATER Presents the Staged Reading

IN THE MATTER OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER by Heinar Kipphardt/Translated by Ruth Speirs

DIRECTED BY BRUCE COUGHRAN

“In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer”
 presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

Featuring: James Carpenter as Robert Oppenheimer

Production Date: September 22, 2013

What is the price of security?  What is the meaning of loyalty?  In this play, taken from the actual transcripts of Oppenheimer’s 1954 security hearing, the nation’s most famous scientist, the “father of the atomic bomb” is accused of being untrustworthy.  Although the hearing was not an actual trial, the play becomes a powerful courtroom drama, with a zealous young prosecutor who will stop at nothing, and a defense that relies only on reason and fairness.

Indra’s Net Theater presents this special one-night only event, with a full reading of the play with some of the area’s best actors, followed by a panel discussion.  An ex- Berkeley resident, Oppenheimer is a complicated man.  He becomes troubled as his past is picked through. In the end he is unceremoniously stripped of his security clearance and labeled a danger to the country he has most uniquely served.   Come see this rarely produced play about secrecy, security, modern “big science” and it’s relationship to the military, and what it means to be a loyal American in a time of global complexity.