About the Play

At 3:20 PM on Tuesday, May 21, 1946 Louis Slotin‘s hand slipped– a small, practically insignificant blunder, except that Slotin was the chief -bomb builder at Los Alamos, and at that fateful moment he held in his hands a plutonium bomb core named “Rufus”.  The slip caused a chain reaction that in turn released a deadly “prompt burst” of radiation.  Slotin and others saw a blue glow and felt a momentary flux of heat on their faces.  Slotin flung the shell to the floor but it was too late. The damage was done.  In the milliseconds it took for the plutonium to spit its deadly neutrons, Louis Slotin became a walking dead man.

With a structure inspired by classical music’s sonata allegro form, Louis Slotin Sonata traces a brilliant scientist’s last nine days, as his body and mind gradually succumb to the chaos wrecked by radiation.  Reliving the moment of his accident again and again, Slotin slowly makes his own unique way to redemption.

Originally commissioned by A Contemporary Theatre as part of their FirstACT play development program, Louis Slotin Sonata premiered at Circle X Theatre in Los Angeles and went on to win the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding World Premiere.

Author’s note – this production still is taken from the top of Act II – the “Comic Book Version” of the accident.  Certainly few if any of the men in the lab that fateful day would have been wearing lab coats.  And none of them fell prostrate like this  after the prompt burst.  I would hate for anyone to follow in the foolish footsteps of earlier Slotin researchers and take such a depiction as some sort of accurate portrayal of the events.

Production History

*staged reading

Sample Media

 Sodom Saki Full Length by Paul Mullin

Awards and Mentions

• WINNER of the LA Drama Critics Circle Ted Schmitt Award for the World Premiere of an Outstanding New Play
• WINNER of the LA Weekly Award for Best New Play
• WINNER of the Backstage West Garland Award for Playwriting
• Nominated for Theatre LA’s Ovation Award for Best Writing – World Premiere Play
• Pick-of-the-Week, THE NEW YORK TIMES on the Web

“…a crafty narrative… irresistibly gripping…. as a historical episode suitable for dramatizing, you can’t do much better.”

— The New York Times

“…a rare bird– a new play that wraps intellectual complexity, emotional depth and theatrical derring-do in one tight and memorable package. It’s bleak, it’s cheeky– it’s dazzling…. Be there!”

— The Los Angeles Times 

“… Intellectually thrilling and rigorous. It really is a must see.”

—WBEZ Chicago Public Radio

“…a powerful play, full of ideas, extremely verbal, creatively written and extraordinarily presented… imaginative, gut-wrenching, thought-provoking, and unexpectedly, highly amusing.”

— Backstage West

“… drama and symbol couldn’t be more delicately interwoven.”

— The LA Weekly

“…Like the crazed geniuses in science fiction, Mullin mixes gobs of this and gobs of that and then — Good heavens! It’s alive! It’s powerful!”

— The Seattle P-I

“…a tumultuous, tour-de-force staging that spreads plenty of intellectual and emotional fallout.”

— The Seattle Times