Copenhagen at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Bristol, PA

Theater: Bristol Riverside Theatre
Show Title: Copenhagen
Opened: March 11, 2008
Seen: March 15, 2008
Reviewer: Gary Labowitz
Submitted: March 16, 2008

Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe Street, Bristol, PA presents “Copenhagen” by Michael Frayn, directed by Edward Payson Call. Cast: Keith Baker, Douglas Campbell, and Moira Wylie. March 11 – 30, 2008.

In 1941, Werner Heisenberg, noted German nuclear physicist, traveled to visit Niels Bohr, noted Danish physicist, and his wife Margrethe Bohr. During the visit they engaged in a private discussion out of the range of Nazi SS surveillance. The nature of that discussion was not and has never been known. Did Heisenberg, in visiting his mentor, seek information on the Allied efforts to develop an atomic weapon, or did he seek help with his own questions on developing an atomic weapon for Nazi Germany? Did they discuss politics? Or was the visit simply one last social call?

The play “Copenhagen” attempts to tempt us by presenting each of these possibilities as the nature of the visit. Since the personnel of the play are spirits of the real life characters (all three are dead) they already know the outcome of their personal decisions in the work they engaged in for each side of the war. The timeframe of the action shifts abruptly and confusingly from 1941 to 1947 to 1943 to … well, you get the idea. Also, we will get the reuniting of the two scientists again and again. Was this a brilliant idea in 1998? (Think: “Rashomon,” “Sliding Doors,” “Run, Lola, Run.”)

The play is staged with an overbearing physics theme. Perhaps this is to be expected; it is about physics and the use to which knowledge of it is put. Niels Bohr sits in his chair while his wife and Heisenberg circle around him, like electrons circling the nucleus of an atom. This was Bohr’s model of the atom. The players then move nearer to and farther from him, mimicking the different energy levels at which the electrons are thought to occupy, which is the quantum theory of Heisenberg. The set echoes this theme with plain black panels with rivets, looking like part of a cyclotron, striped with one long, curving track of the sort high energy particles make in a cloud chamber. The entry/exit spaces are positioned at two and four panels apart, repeating the idea of different energy levels. So much physics!

All characters have their defects and pessimism about the politics and use to which science was being put. When a comment meant to bring us hope that some misuse hasn’t been made, Margrethe is quick to interject, “Yet!” When Niels is asked his opinion of whether something is good or bad, he ducks by answering, “It’s interesting!” Heisenberg makes an attempt at explaining his carrying on the atomic research for Nazi Germany by explaining it is his Fatherland which nurtured him and supported him. Besides, as he points out, would be better in his hands where he can “control” it rather than in Speer’s, the Nazi minister of armaments. I doubt anyone felt compassion for him.

So what is this play really about? The science? The use of science? Bohr and Heisenberg’s relationship? Each of their roles in developing weapons of mass destruction? I give up. If you want to find out, or form your own opinion on this one you will have to go see the play or read the script. I gave up after the first act.