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Remembering Miss Meitner
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Background
About the Play
The one-act play Remembering Miss Meitner was initially
written to be performed at "The Days of Physics" at
the VIth International Science Festival, April 2002.
The performance was arranged by
Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg in collaboration with
the Swedish National Committee for Physics. The enthustiastic
response from the audience quickly lead to several performances around
Sweden, including the Nobel Museum in Stockholm and the City Theatre
in Göteborg, where it won acclaim on the repertoire seasons. Staged readings
have been presented in New York and Oak Ridge, USA and discussions are
underway for possible German and Italian productions. The play is
further being adopted for radio by Swedish Broadcasting. The importance
of Göteborg for the developement of the play is logical since
Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch first made sense of nuclear
fission during their famous walk in the snow in Kungälv, just about
20 km from Göteborg and the conference site itself.
About the Actors
Inger Hayman studied at the school of the Royal Dramatic Theatre
(Dramaten) in Stockholm and was performing there between 1955-1962.
She came to Gothenburg
City Theatre, Göteborgs Stadsteater, in 1962 and has been performing
there ever
since. In recent years she has done Arthur Millers "All my sons", Edward
Albees "Three tall women", Terence Mc Nally's "Masterclass" and the
role as Margrethe Bohr in Michel Frayn's "Copenhagen". In the year 2000
she was awarded a Doctor h.c. at
Chalmers University of Technology together with Ingemar Carlehed and
Johan Karlberg.
Ingemar Carlehed is an actor, director and teacher at theatre schools.
He is active at
the Gothenburg City Theatre since 1971. He has been theatre manager at
the Halland
Theatre, and he is a frequent reader in the Swedish radio broadcasts. He
has played
Sigmund Freud in "Hysterica", duke Bolkonsky in "War and Peace" and
Niels Bohr in
Michel Frayn's "Copenhagen". He was awarded a Doctor h.c. at Chalmers
University
of Technology year 2000, together with Inger Hayman and Johan Karlberg.
Ingvar Haggren worked for 18 years at Gothenburg City Theatre and is
since 1998
a freelance actor. He has recently acted in two theatrical performances
that have
attracted great attention at the Sweden's Nationwide Theatre, namely
Athur Millers
"Broken Glass" and Jon Fosses "Someone Is Going to Come". The latter has
been played
all over Sweden in 2002 and 2003 and in Budapest, Oslo and Bergen.
Haggren is also
active as a teacher at the Göteborg Theatre School.
About the Author
Robert Marc Friedman is a professor of history of science at the
University of Olso in Norway. He studied theatre and physical
science at New York University before taking a doctorate in history
of science at Johns Hopkins University. He is an internationally recognzied
specialist on history of modern science and its relations with
society and he was earlier professor at University of California, San Diego
and several times guest researcher at Uppsala University.
"Remembering Miss Meitner" is the first of several planned
dramatizations based on his book, "The Politics of Excellence: Behind the
Nobel Prize in Science" (2001).
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Outline
Professor Lise Meitner................Inger Hayman
Professor Otto Hahn...................Ingemar Carlehed
Professor Manne Siegbahn..........Ingvar Haggren
Music composed by Mats Johansson
Time: The Present
Place: The Chamber of Historical Memory
Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
is a combination of insecurity and bossiness arising from
her having struggled as a woman in the male-dominated world of science.
Having been leader of her own physics department at Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute in Berlin, she experienced "success" before virtually
everything was taken from her.
Otto Hahn (1879-1968)
is used to being liked and respected. He has played the game
scientists play very well indeed, using both talent and skills
and had a reputation of being an excellent chemsist.
Manne Siegbahn (1886-1978)
craved success and got it. He is a master of instrumental design,
and assumed a leading role in Swedish physics. He guarded his
position of power, especially when Meitner came as a refugee to his
laboratory. Siegbahn received the 1924
Nobel Prize in physics "for his discoveries
and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy".
Time line
1934: In Rome, Enrico Fermi irradiates uranium with neutrons, announces
discovery that uranium transforms into new heavier man-made elements.
In Berlin, Lise Meitner invites her former collaborator in research,
Otto Hahn, to join her in studying these new elements.
1937: In Stockholm, after many years trying to raise money, Manne
Siegbahn opens a Nobel Institute for Experimental Physics.
1938: Lise Meitner is forced to flee Berlin leaving Otto Hahn and Fritz
Strassmann to continue the research. She finds a safe haven
in Sweden at Siegbahn's lab.
1939: Hahn and Strassmann announce evidence indicating that the irradiated
uranium atom actually splits into lighter elements. Lise Meitner and Otto
Frisch explain nuclear fission.
1945: Otto Hahn received undivided the 1944
Nobel Prize in chemistry "for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei"
and comes to Stockholm to receive the prize in 1946.
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