Truman Noble Character Traits

NUCLEAR FAMILY CHARACTER LIST:

Cher Noble: Cher is a woman in her mid 30s living in a top secret, Cold War era U.S. town centered on nuclear research, very reminiscent of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Cher gave up everything when she was younger for her now abusive husband, Truman. Throughout the run of the play Cher slowly deteriorates in spirit and health and by the end she is a shell of the woman she once was; much the disaster zone of her namesake, Chernobyl.

Truman Noble: Cher’s husband in his later 30s. Named after the 1945-1958 U.S. President, Harry S. Truman. Truman is a respected leading nuclear scientist and his research is among the most influential, although his methods of gathering information are unknown to the public and highly immoral.

He’s an abusive husband and has taken his wife, Cher’s entire life away from her for his own benefit. The actor never directly interacts with or acknowledges their children.

Trinity Noble: Cher’s 11 year old daughter.

Named after the first successful test of a nuclear weapon, she’s a bright spirited, optimistic 11 year old girl. She’s very naive to the ways of the world, especially as a young woman who will soon realize how little freedom she truly has to achieve her dreams in a patriarchal society. She represents Cher’s younger self.

Julius Noble: Cher’s 15 year old son. Named after J. Robert Oppenheimer, leading physicist in the Manhattan Project, also known as “the father of the atomic bomb”. Julius is a studious high school student taking after his father in his very serious nature and following of rules. He’s almost a projection of who Truman was when Cher fell in love with him.

Dr. Borax: Truman Noble’s boss; A middle aged man who is head of operations at the nuclear testing facility the town is centered on. Due to the nature of his work, he is completely desensitized to the horrors of the world, and sees the people in the town as cogs to his system rather than as people. Named after the BORAX-I experiments on nuclear energy that figured out how to keep nuclear energy clean and efficient, despite the sometimes catastrophic disasters resulting, Borax controls every aspect of town, including the lives of the Nobles, is his and the government’s own efficient

machine.

“3 Wise Monkeys” Statues: An unspoken part that in a limited cast can be replaced with statues, although actors are preferred. They are an evil presence inspired by pieces of propaganda from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They serve to represent the play’s mantra, “What you see here, what you do here, what you hear here, when you leave here let it stay here,” reminding our lead, Cher, how trapped she is in her life.