Herbert George Beutler believes he is Newton, Ernst Ernesti thinks he is Einstein. Johann Wilhelm Mobius who has visions in which King Solomon appears to him. In charge is the aristocratic, hunchbacked woman-psychiatrist, Fraulein Dr. Mathilde zon Zahnd.
Play title: The Physicists
Author (s): Friedrich Dürrenmatt (translated from the German by James Kirkup)
Publisher: Grove Press Inc. (also Samuel French Inc.)
Publication Date: German in 1962, English in 1964
Genre: Comedy (Satire)
Primary Discipline: Physics
Secondary Discipline: Psychology
Scientist (s): Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein
Source Texts: Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (1958) by Robert Jungk
Character Breakdown: 16 men, 4 women
Herbert George Beutler, Ernst Ernesti, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, Fraulein Dr. Mathilde zon Zahnd, Marta Boll, Monika Stettler, Uwe Sievers, McArthur, Murillo, Oskar Rose, Frau Lina Rose, Adolf-Frieedrich, Wilfried-Kaspar, Jörg-Lukas, Richard Voss, Police Doctors, Guhl, Blocher.
Setting: A madhouse
Time Period: Present day (1060s)
Synopsis of Play: Herbert George Beutler believes he is Newton, Ernst Ernesti thinks he is Einstein. Both are fairly recent arrivals at the asylum. Johann Wilhelm Mobius who has visions in which King Solomon appears to him, has been there for fifteen years. In charge is the efficient, aristocratic, hunchbacked woman-psychiatrist, Fraulein Dr. Mathilde zon Zahnd. To this, add the Aristotelian unities to place, time and action, and one has the basic ingredients of Swiss dramatist Friedrich Durrenmatt’s latest – and perhaps most ambitious – play. With these ingredients, Durrenmatt has fashioned a work that probes beneath the surface of seeming comedy to ask a number of pertinent questions about today’s world. For it soon becomes evident that the harmless, lovable lunatics are not as simple as they seem. Are they, in fact really mad? Or are they playing some murderous game, with the world as the stake? Once again, as with his previous plays, Durrenmatt here shows himself to be a master dramatist, capable of electrifying the theater. (Play text cover blurb, Grove Press)
First Performance Date: 1962
First Producer: Produced in Zürich, Switzerland
Performance History: In 1962, the world premiere of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play Die Physiker, The Physicists, was shown in Zürich, Switzerland. Since then it has been performed all over the world and been translated into many different languages. Including James Kirkup’s English edition, referenced in this post.
Links:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/11/19/brilliance-of-physics-excites-director-mike/
http://www.oobr.com/top/volSeven/twentynine/Physicists.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/stage/2004/01/physicists_review.shtml
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-physicists-at-fifty
Audio Recording of the play can be found at LA Theater Works Relativity Series: https://store.latw.org/plays/the-physicists/
Entered by Denise Gillman/Brooke Sanders
Production Photos:
Donmar Warehouse Theatre, London July 2012.
Donmar Warehouse Theatre, London July 2012.
