In this, the 80th anniversary week of the bombing of Hiroshima – the Kita Noh Theatre in Tokyo will host a haunting and timely theatrical event.

Performed in English by the Japanese-American company Theatre Nohgaku, Oppenheimer is a Noh play by Australian musicologist and Zen teacher Allan Marett. It imagines the ghost of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called “father of the atomic bomb”, as a tormented spirit seeking redemption.

“Noh is a classical Japanese theatre form developed in the 14th century,” explains Marett. “It’s rooted in music and dance and deeply symbolic – not a realism-based performance style. The stage is bare, the actors wear masks and many plays carry Buddhist themes.” 

Often, he notes, the protagonist is a ghost unable to move on due to unresolved suffering. “They often appear as ghosts, unable to move on due to these unresolved issues. The character’s suffering gets resolved during the play, and by the end they break free from that ghostly existence.”

Oppenheimer, 2015, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Photo © Lee Nutter

That narrative shape, Marett realised, made Noh the ideal vessel for telling the story of Oppenheimer, a man burdened by...