Australian TV Plays: The Physicists (3 June 1964)

Some Swiss satire! Yes, really.

Premise

At a mental asylum in Europe, police investigate the murder of two nurses who were assigned to three inmates, all physicists: Mobius, Beutler, and Ernesti. Mobius imagines himself as in contact with King Solomon. Beutel and Ernesti maintain they are Newton and Einstein.

Cast

Terry Norris as Beutler
Wynn Roberts as Mobius
Robert Peach as Ernesti
Syd Conabere
Brian James
Patricia Kennedy as psychiatrist
Gerda Nicolson
Elizabeth Wing

Original play

It was written in 1961 by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt.The play was first performed in Zürich in 1962 and translated into English by James Kirkup, and published in the US in 1964. It was first performed in England in 1963.

You can borrow a copy here.

My thoughts on the play. Really funny. Fast paced. Witty. Clever. Lots of fun - nutters talking fast with stakes (a murder has taken place).

Other productions

It was on ABC radio in April 1964. It was produced on stage in Sydney in March 1964.

It was filmed by BBC TV in 1965 as well as for TV in some European countries. So ABC did it before the BBC!

Production

The play had been first produced in London in January 1963 and made its Australian stage premiere in St Martins Theatre Sydney, October 1963.

It was one of 20 TV plays produced by the ABC in 1964.

Chris Muir described the play as "full of the unexpected and rich in dramatic climaxes. It is also a play of black humour. Durrenmatt, while making us laugh at ourselves, makes us feel uncomfortable in the process by showing us our failings often through grotesque imagery."

Muir called it "a black comedy".

Reception

The critic for the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the production:

Shifted the convincing effects in the play from the chaff of its thriller-comedy element. The light relief dialogue is there for the purpose of keeping a puzzled live audience amused, and on television this doubtful sprinkling of humour did not come through; similarly the two murders and police investigations range false in such unrealistic treatment. Christopher Muir... followed Duerrenmatt's directions closely, imposing on television the geometrical pattern of the asylum common ' room with its three cell doors and the curiously clockwork behaviour of the characters. As though seen under a magnifying glass, the gripping features of the play showed clear and sharp; the only real and understandable figure, fortunately one central to the play, was given a worthy portrayal by Wynn Roberts (although one of his big scenes was cut). This was Mobius, the genius impelled by both fear and courage. Tension is well supplied to the second half of the play by, the unexpected twists of the plot, and the cold, lucid arguments of the three physicists were excellently focused in this production.