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Copenhagen
- tour
Playwright - Michael Frayn
Director - Michael Blakemore
Designer - Peter J. Davison
Lighting Designer - Mark Henderson
Company - Royal National Theatre Production presented by Michael
Codron and Lee Dean
Venue - King’s Theatre Address Leven Street Tel 0131 529 6000
Dates - 30 Oct - 3 November at 7:30pm matinees 2.30pm Wed and
Sat
Reviewer - Ksenija Horvat
Superb performances, inspired direction and fine design
Copenhagen is a cleverly composed parable about two famous meetings, in
1941 and in 1947, between the two finest brains of quantum physics of
the time, Werner Heisenberg and his mentor Niels Bohr, which have remained
mystery until this day. Frayn fuses historical accounts and fiction in
an effort to clarify what exactly happened on those two occasions. By
beginning the characters’ story after they have long been dead, he opens
up various possibilities of re-interpretation of historical events, and
comments on our past, as well as our present, on science and the mystery
of human motivation. Through the complex parent-child relationship between
Bohr (played with great authority by David Horovitch ) and Heisenberg
(Alexander Hanson at his best as a passionate and vulnerable German
scientist), and under a shrewd eye of Bohr’s wife Margrethe (wonderfully
controlled performance by Anna Carteret), the author explores the
issues surrounding the production of the first atomic bomb, and its consequences
for the mankind.
This is a play about quantum physics and historical personae on the surface
only. On a much deeper level, it deals with ‘quantum ethics’, as Heisenberg
calls it at one point in the play. It is the play about the notions of
responsibility, guilt, and insurmountable human loss. Blakemore sets the
play’s action in the circle that represents the world, and he seats a
few members of the audience on the stage. The protagonists never leave
the circle, and they do not engage with those members of the audience.
All of this makes us painfully aware that what we see before us is an
experiment, with the shadows from the past as its objects. Superb performances,
and inspired direction, are further enhanced by Peter J. Davison’s design
which is aesthetically pleasing and rich in metaphor, and Mark Henderson’s
excellent lighting design that further accentuates the change in time
and in the characters’ emotions. Not to be missed.
© Ksenija Horvat 30 October 2001
Historical note about production: Copenhagen is Michael Frayn’s sixteenth
original work for the stage. The Royal National Theatre's London production
won the Evening Standard and two other Best Play awards; the Paris production
won the Prix Molière; and the New York production the Tony Award for Best
play. Michael Blakemore directed all three productions.
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