Ludwig and Bertie

“Ludwig and Bertie” by Douglas Lackey, directed by Alexander Harrington, takes on the forty-year love/hate relationship between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell,two leading twentieth-century philosophers, from their first meeting at Cambridge in 1911 to Wittgenstein’s death in 1951.

Russell is heterosexual, hedonistic and agnostic; Wittgenstein is puritanical, gay and Jewish.  Russell is an imprisoned pacifist; Wittgenstein a decorated combat soldier. Wittgenstein is intensely religious; Russell mocks religion from first to last.  Wittgenstein regards Russell as his “mental father,” but their relationship has elements of rivalry.

In Lackey’s telling, Wittgenstein’s thinking kindles the demolition of facts in our post-truth world while Russell’s inspires the National Science Foundation. This play will show you how.