The Drunkards – A Play By Antonio álamo

Golden Fleece Theatre presents 'The Drunkards' as part of the 2019 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Ever done something you regret?

6 August 1945, at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Manhattan Project team is gathered to celebrate the successful dropping of the first non-experimental atomic bomb over Hiroshima. The partakers of this macabre dinner party are the scientists, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer who, over the years prior to the mission, have been working on achieving nuclear fission in order to make the construction of the bomb possible.

As the night progresses, the eight scientists - amongst whom are some Nobel Prize laureates - plus Mrs Oppenheimer and General Groves of the U.S. Army, become more and more intoxicated, trying to come to terms with the consequences of their actions.

Did they just do what had to be done, in order to win the war?

Or did they irremediably abuse the power of science?

Acclaimed Spanish playwright Antonio Álamo’s award-winning play, 'The Drunkards' will challenge the audience with its confronting moral questions, and force them to look in the eye of the tragic, still too relevant legacy of those events.

An Australian premiere, The Drunkards is also the first production of newly founded Golden Fleece Theatre, an independent theatre company committed to bring little known international works to the Australian public, in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in Australia.

Warning: Contains sudden loud noises, potentially triggering content or themes, including Emotional Abuse, Alcohol Use, War, Smoking on Stage

Special event:
Friday 20 September marks the 2nd anniversary of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

Dr Margaret Beavis and Dave Sweeney from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Nobel Peace Prize 2017) will deliver a brief talk before the performance about the relevance of the play today and inform on the current disarmament campaign in Australia.