Copenhagen is guaranteed to make you think. Physics, mathematics and philosophy play major roles as we are whisked back and forth through time. It is after the deaths of the three protagonists, then it's the Twenties, World War II, post war, and more as the characters reminisce. Michael Frayn's play is a challenge to both actors and audience.
Copenhagen explores the 1941 meeting of German Physicist Werner Heisenberg with his former teacher and partner, Niels Bohr in Nazi-occupied Denmark. The meeting is discussed in depth from the various positions of these two who are friends as well as competitors, teacher, student and antagonist.
The perspective of time plays an important role as we watch the two brilliant scientists and Niels' wife, Margrethe Bohr. She, has transcribed her husband's notes and understands the science involved. She observes, interjecting a pointed barb or a bit of rational repartee, often counterpointing their verbal sparing.
It is much more than quantum physics and atom splitting. For those not versed in the salient scientific terms, a two-page glossary is included in the program. It is the relationship of the men through the years that is the focus of the drama -- two men on parallel courses; Heisenberg a German working under the Nazi regime, and Bohr, a Jew. Both received Nobel Prizes.
Playwright Frayn took on an almost impossible task in Copenhagen to make the science and the complex relationship understandable. Director George Ye opens up this, at times, dense work and given it life in his staging. There is a constant physical competition for a leadership position on the stage.
The two men, Joshua Everett Johnson as Werner Heisenberg and Jim Chovick as Niels Bohr, seem to be in constant motion as electrons circling the nucleus of an atom. It is up to Rosina Reynolds' meson* (*a strongly interacting particle) to bring the two back into balance. The performances occasionally explode in electric confrontation, then find a balance in the banter to and fro. The overlong first act tends to get a bit lost in science more than personalities.
The second act becomes more exciting as Johnson displays student Heisenberg's episodes of arrogance. Chovick's Bohr explodes in anger as she paces, circling the other two. Time and again, Reynolds forces them back to a calmer, gentler relationship. The resolve in the play, alas, never happened in real life. Bohr and Heisenberg became enemies in their 1941 meeting, and their differences stayed with them until death.
Sean Murray's set appears quite simple. Three chalk boards hang on either side, canted down slightly towards center stage. A single board forms the final backdrop. Three chairs are center stage. Each board, which looks well used and erased often, is covered with mathematical formulae. Jeanne Reith has dressed both men in suit and vest: Johnson in somber black, Chovick in a warmer brown shade. Reynolds, also suited, is in off-white. Ye's sound, from the oppressive first moments of marching troops, underscores the mood of the moment. Eric Lotze's extremely moody lighting adds to the texture of the production.
Theater is meant to entertain and to make you think. Copenhagen will definitely make you think about relationships, physics and mathematics, and how history would have changed had Heisenberg chosen to discover the key to the atomic bomb. Google both men's biographies, then see the play.
