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The Walk in the Snow
London Fringe Festival
5 Stars
This show is a fascinating recounting of an almost-forgotten moment in scientific history, the aftermath of which (among other things), significantly overshadowed simple story leading to a world-changing discovery.
Jem Rolls is a consummate storyteller, whose passion for the history of Lise Meitner is evident. His seamless melding of poetry, humour and casual asides make this story – and the characters involved – come to life.
Rolls had my attention from the moment I entered the theatre, with European violin music interspersed with audio from a Nazi rally creating immediate context for his story. I was enthralled with the story itself, and with Rolls’ technical prowess as storyteller.
A gem of a tale – recounted with passion and prowess – that shouldn’t be missed.
http://fringereview.ca/the-walk-in-the-snow-5-stars/
Jem Rolls is back and he’s splitting the atom with a compelling look at a fateful moment in history that ushered in the atomic age. As competing laboratories around the world race to invent the most destructive force on the planet, Lise Meitner stands alone as a woman of brilliance with a conscience out of place in Nazi Germany. Rolls is a wonderful storyteller, in a class of his own, energized and focused, a witness to the past drawing its shadows in the very air.
A World War Two race for the bomb turns out to be a fascinating tale of physics intrigue, political suspense, and a woman out of time and place. Delivered in his impeccably relentless manner, Jem Rolls out Lise Meitner’s forgotten herstory in a breathtaking sixty minute monologue. It’s a sweaty marathon of a performance that pauses only briefly to allow Jem a new angle on the audience, never losing his tight grip on full attention paid. Physics phans will love it, especially the spot on nuclear lessons, though there’s enough top notch non-fictional drama to draw everyone in. With a deep British baritone and a penetrating stare, Jem commands attention oh so lacking in most history classes.
– hipCRANK
APARTMENT 613
Fringe Review: The Walk In The Snow: the true story of Lise Meitner
By Brian Carroll on June 16, 2019
The Walk in The Snow: the true story of Lise Meitner
by jem rolls
59 min / 14+ / Storytelling
Lise who?
You may well ask. Today even science geeks like me don’t know about Lise Meitner. But she achieved an impressive number of accomplishments, awards and honours:
second woman to get a doctoral degree in physics at the University of Vienna (1905),
first female allowed to attend physicist Max Planck’s lectures,
Planck’s first female assistant (1907),
joint discoverer of the element protactinium,
first woman in Germany to become a full professor of physics (1926),
National Press Club “Woman of the Year” (USA, 1946),
21 scientific honours and awards.
Yet these days, who knows the name Lise Meitner outside the physics discipline? How did one of the discoverers of the science of nuclear fission disappear from public view?
As rolls says in a recurring theme (with variations): wrong sex, wrong race, wrong time, wrong place.
While jem rolls has made a career of performance poetry, his storytelling show, The Inventor of All Things about physicist Leo Szilard became his most popular work. TIOAT had sellouts across the Fringe circuit. It found rolls a larger audience beyond his poetry fans.
In 1935, as head of the physics department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, Meitner and long time associate Otto Hahn worked on transuranium research (elements heavier than uranium).
In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria and Meitner became subject to German law. Her Jewish parentage was now an existential threat. As rolls says in a recurring theme (with variations): wrong sex, wrong race, wrong time, wrong place.
Why is the show called The Walk in the Snow?
With the help of friends, Meitner escaped to Sweden via Holland. On Christmas Eve 1938, Meitner’s physicist nephew Otto-Robert Frisch visited her, bringing a report from associates Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. Hahn and Strassmann had bombarded uranium with neutrons and observed barium and unexpected levels of energy. What did it mean?
Frisch (on skis) and Meitner (on snowshoes) took a walk in the snow, stopping to work on the implications. Meitner worked on the math and concluded that she and other physicists were wrong. Bombarding uranium with neutrons doesn’t result in transuranium elements. Rather the neutrons split the atom, resulting in barium, krypton, more neutrons, and energy commensurate with Einstein’s E = mc^2. Frisch named the phenomenon “nuclear fission”.
Later the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for nuclear fission was awarded to…
Otto Hahn.
Meitner never received a Nobel Prize.
Being a science junkie, I found the train of events in Meitner’s life intriguing. jem rolls’ fast pace held my attention through the twists and turns of Meitner’s life, particularly her life in Germany during the Nazi era.
But I wondered what the rest of the audience thought of it. While they laughed heartily at one humourous tangent, for the most part they were quiet though attentive.
I needn’t have worried. At the end the audience reacted with enthusiastic, appreciative and very long applause, forcing rolls to take many bows.
https://apt613.ca/fringe-review-the-walk-in-the-snow/
Six stars if it were possible!! Do yourself a favour and see this show. Jem Rolls had us in the palm of his hand. He is a remarkable performer with a unique vision of which stories are worth telling.