In the rear, a long curtain before multi-tiered circle and ovals; in the foreground, space for changes of scene via prop placement: how fitting! The story of the U. S. Military bringing into Huntsville, Alabama, a team of former Nazi scientists headed by Wernher Von Braun, and how this affects the townspeople intertwines with that of Jewish Amy Lubin (Lori Prince, sweet but tough). She has come from the Bronx to wed Alabaman Jed Kessler (always amiable, romantic Daniel Talbott).
Cold-War logic dominates Major Hamilton Pike, Jr. (Fletcher McTaggart, epitomizing ambition and surety). He's determined to establish U. S. dominance in rocketry over Russia, with its lesser share of post-WWII-acquired German talent. Town leaders like newspaper owner Lester Pruitt, who's very interested in developing real estate with insider info from Pike, envision economic prosperity. His wife Susanna, society leader and columnist, wants to boost their social standing through contacts with the titled foreigners. (Paul Hopper and Greta Lambert are right on as this couple on the make, Southern style.)
Yet moral as well as personal concerns gnaw at Amy, who lost a brother in the war. She solicits opinions from friends old and new on the Germans Pike calls "immigrants." She hears from London of the devastation caused by bombs propelled by their rockets. Amy surmises these were starting points for the ones being developed in Alabama.
Getting to know Jed and his family better, Amy prepares for a formal Jewish marriage and settling into her new home. (The amount of time this takes, with no mention of her working or other everyday activity, seems a flaw the playwright should work out.) What seems to keep Amy busiest is writing letters.
Amy finds the Pruitts' paper no outlet for her increasing findings about the scientists' work in Germany and party affiliations. Pike, to whom Amy's arguments to the government keep getting referred, maintains the Germans have been well vetted and found "not political." In Huntsville, they keep mainly to their lab work, as do their families to themselves.
Typically, Miss Dupray, Jeb's old teacher who feels stuck in "this cultural Death Valley," is won over by the Germans' love of music. (Suzanna Hay gives her comic ego, whereas her Baroness Von Braun is chilling.) To make them more acceptable to "ordinary" Americans, Pike persuades Von Braun to learn to speak like them. (Both he and Hopper's vocal coach, Lemuel Decatur, are a stitch working together.
Matt Bradford Sullivan is nothing short of amazing as he slides gradually but surely from annoyed Von Braun's stiff stance and clipped vocal correctness, his jaw finally as relaxed as his body is resigned. For a TV spot, he almost smiles.
Ralph Elias is a quick study in contrasts, doubling as frightened scientist Klauber and witty, practical Rabbi.
Musical bridges sung and wrapped around scenes by deep-voiced James Bowen express both the ideas and emotions in them. As townsman Israel Watkins, he forcefully vents his frustrations with his status as a Black veteran who fought against Germans and now finds Nazis quickly made citizens with privileges and ceremonies denied him.
Costumes convey period and help characterization. Effective throughout, sound and lighting finely meld in a presentation of the finished rocket. So confident is David Ellington's direction that the irony of Saltzman's resolution appears quite satisfactory.
