The dropping of the atomic bomb was not just the decision of one pilot. It was the culmination of many choices.
This is the concept of Canadian playwright Marie Clements’ “Burning Vision,” which will make its U.S. debut at the University of Oregon’s Hope Theatre on Feb. 26.
“Burning Vision,” directed by University theater arts assistant professor Theresa May, is the third of five plays premiering this school year in the theater department’s “Year of the Book” season.
The play, which runs through March 13, tells the story of a mine in Bear Lake, Canada, that provided the uranium used to make the atomic bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Through the interweaving of several different stories from around the world, Clements displays the immense, ongoing effect the bomb’s creation had on history and humanity.
“Everything that goes on in the world will affect later generations,” stage manager Christine Rattigan said about the play’s message.
To many students, the history of the atomic bomb began and ended with World War II. However, as the play depicts, the real story began with the Sahtu Dene indigenous community of Northern Canada who worked in the uranium mines surrounding Bear Lake.
The inspiration for the play came after Clements, whose family is part of the Dene tribe, traveled to the area to learn more about her heritage. Through her findings, she developed a vision for a play that crossed international borders and time periods. Her idea was to create a script that showed how every person and every action is connected.
Clements will travel from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the University to speak about the play after the March 12 performance.
Play dramaturge Brian Cook said that after the play was read in a number of theater classes, the consistent comment by students was that they had never thought about the atomic bomb in that context. It was the historical and political component that attracted Japanese international student Yusuke Shioya, who plays a Japanese fisherman.
Shioya, a political science and economics major who had never participated in theater before, said the play is not geared solely toward theater students and has a component to it that everyone will enjoy.
Because the story follows characters from across the globe, it has an international aspect that was important to maintain.
The production features a multicultural cast and was recruited with the help of vocal and dialect specialist Mary Unruh. Unruh’s job is to train the actors in the five different dialects included in the play.
Another unique feature of the production is the way the intimacy of the theater
maintains the themes of unity and community from the story.
The Hope Theatre is the smaller of the two theaters in the Miller Complex, and the production’s set design incorporates the audience into the story by placing them in a circle around the stage.
 “You get a great sense of the story of the play by being in the environment that is created,” Cook said.
The play runs for about 100 minutes, and tickets cost $14 for the general public and $12 for University faculty and $7 for UO students.
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