Little boy

Correspondence between the philosopher Günther Anders and Claude Eatherly, the pilot of Hiroshima adaptation and direction Marco Di Costanzo with Domenico Cucinotta Stefano Parigi Monica Santoro “Little boy” is the code name of the Hiroshima bomb, which caused 70,000 victims in a few moments, 200,000 subsequently due to radiation. For the first time in history, humankind confronts the possibility of self-destruction. The play is a stage version of the correspondence between the philosopher Günther Anders and Claude Eatherly, the American pilot who authorized the release of the bomb, interned in a psychiatric hospital following difficulties reintegrating into civil society: “I don’t know if (…) They have told you my whole story. I am the pilot who led, in World War II, the ‘Hiroshima atomic mission’, and since then my conscience has been tormented by remorse. I became guilty of antisocial acts because, in the confusion I was in, I sought punishment by every means.” (Claude Eatherly, Letter of 22/4/1960) In Little boy the actors weave an ambiguous, lively and surreal action. Four characters move in a space opened onto the abyss of an imminent Apocalypse; they debate the path to follow for the salvation of humanity: what a human being does and desires as an individual is in opposition to what he does and desires as a member of the species? Is devotion to a cause the stuff of saints or of madmen?