Michael Frayn's Copenhagen is sure to strike a resonant chord with today's audiences. Daily headlines are filled with reports regarding foreign countries and their weapons of mass destruction. Does Iraq have the bomb? Does Iran? Does North Korea? Copenhagen takes us back to the origins of such discussions.
Frayn has cleverly used a mysterious, true story about a fabled 1941 meeting between two atomic physicists. Niels Bohr, a half-Jewish Dane, is visited at his Copenhagen home by his protege, Werner Heisenberg. The latter is German, and he puts both of them at risk for visiting his old friend and colleague.
Bohr's wife, Margrethe, is the nucleus of this drama. She utters the play's opening line. "But why? Why did he come?," she wonders aloud. The real-life conversation was never recorded and never disclosed, even to this day. In Frayn's play, the three characters meet long after they've died, to work out some of the variables of what may have happened during that meeting. Frayn obviously has researched the threads of this discussion, but this is fiction based on fact. The award-winning play was a hit in both London and on Broadway.
Remarkably, all three characters share the stage for the entire performance. Of the three, Bohr seems the most certain of himself. He mostly has a clear conscience despite playing a small part in developing the bomb after fleeing to Los Alamos, N.M. His wife, a source of strength and support for her husband, never wavers in her devotion. This makes her a rather one-note character, however. As played by Laura Gordon, Margrethe's emotions only are aroused when she considers Heisenberg. One minute she sees him as a lost pup; the next, she is suspicious and condemning of his motives. As Bohr, James Pickering presents a very likeable side of this crusty physicist. His pupils regard Bohr as a father figure, and this certainly seems to be true with Heisenberg. One minute he is buoying up the younger man's spirits; the next, he is critical of Heisenberg's motivations, as well as his methods. Heisenberg most often expresses the soul of the play. Actor Torrey Hanson has some of his finest onstage moments when conveying the scientist's anguish.
Heisenberg lives in a world of fear and uncertainty, and Hanson makes us feel for Heisenberg's delicate position. While presumably stalling Germany's access to nuclear weapons, he is in fact guaranteeing that Germany -- his homeland -- will lose the war. After the war, Heisenberg says, "I spent the next 30 years explaining myself."
Although Milwaukee Rep Artistic Director Joe Hanreddy creates many fine moments in Copenhagen, the script is so intellectually dense that audiences may feel lost. In their conversations, Bohr and Heisenberg constantly plow through a long list of their colleagues' names, in an almost Biblical fashion. About all that one gains from this knowledge is the insight that Jewish physicists mainly fled to the U.S., which ultimately causes Germany to lose the war. Most of the names and locations Bohr and Heisenberg tick off mean nothing to younger audiences. Also, the play explains the subject of physics, both quantum and mechanical, in great detail. The emotional aspects of the play cannot be sustained under the weight of this heavy discussion. Even the play's circular style, expressed in the fact that the characters replay scenes again and again, appears redundant. The play's circularity is expressed physically by Michael Frenkel's intriguing set.
The floor is a series of faux marbleized ovals, stacked up about four or five levels high. The backdrop is a large, stylized mirror. The mirrored sections form a constellation of planets, perhaps, or electrons surrounding atoms. Although the mirrors are stationary, they create a sense of movement. This is a good thing for a play centered on ideas, not action. The costumes are in suitably dreary tones that correctly express the period. For better or worse, they do not distract from the weighty discussion.
