COPENHAGEN
Directed by Michael Rafkin; written by Michael Frayn
With: Alison Edwards, Lee Godart, Glen Pannell
At Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine
From March 4 to March 23, 2003
Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves
In 1941, Werner Heisenberg, of uncertainty principle fame, went to Denmark
to visit his old teacher and mentor Niels Bohr. What did they discuss? Did
Heisenberg, who was working for Nazi Germany, want to wheedle physics
information from Bohr? Did he come to help and protect his former teacher,
who had Jewish roots? Apparently there is a great deal of uncertainty about
this, even in the minds of the participants and in the records they left
behind. In Copenhagen, the British playwright Michael Frayn imagines
a reunion of the ghosts of Heisenberg, Bohr, and Margrethe, Bohr’s wife, and
has them explore the various possibilities. Naturally, we are not given
any absolute answers. Only uncertainties.
Portland Stage Company’s excellent production of this difficult, demanding
but rewarding play takes place on a tilted, swirl of a set that is made of
two halves. With only three chairs as props, the set couldn’t be simpler.
Yet it has the feel of an atom; it has the feel of the universe; it has the
feel of the Yin-Yang symbol.
The three actors also swirl around each other as they probe what might or
might not have happened and discuss the moral responsibility of scientists.
And, as the play progresses, Bohr and Heisenberg reveal the affection they
feel for each other. They also manage to convey the nearly impossible; that
is, the sheer excitement of physics, of scientists rushing to meet Bohr at
train stations so that they can get his opinions on a certain theory. With
dialog that is sharp, witty, and, at times, funny, they describe the
competitiveness of the scientists. Then, on a darker note, they take us back
and forth through time and remind us where the excitement ultimately led—to
the development of nuclear weapons.
Lee Godart, who plays Niels Bohr, the “father” of quantum physics, has the
deliberate, bulky good looks of Albert Finny. He also has a commanding stage
presence, and he makes it abundantly clear why Heisenberg loves, respects,
and even fears him. However, Mr. Godart brings humor and warmth as well as
authority to his role. And regret. We learn that Bohr failed to save one of
his sons from drowning, and he will never forget this.
Glen Pannell, as Werner Heisenberg, is slim, blond, and youthful looking. As
he darts around the stage, we get a sense of his quick intelligence and
energy. Then he becomes still as he describes his love for his country, even
under the Nazi regime, and for a moment we understand and even sympathize
with him.
These two actors show how Bohr and Heisenberg were the odd couple of
physics—one deliberate and the other quick, in both thought and movement.
Their fine performances illustrate the creativity of such a collaboration
and also show the tensions that come with being on opposing sides. Their
portrayals are suitably complex, well rounded, and moving.
Alison Edwards, as Margrethe Bohr, has the somewhat thankless job of
portraying the helpful wife that so many great men seem to have. Through the
course of the play, we learn that she typed all his manuscripts, tended the
children, and didn’t even resent it when he went off for one of his famous,
extended hikes when the babies were only a week old. What man wouldn’t want
such a wife?
However, Ms. Edwards portrays Margrethe with such a sharp intelligence that we
end up admiring her nearly as much as we do her husband. She is bright as
well as maternal, and can certainly stand her ground with both Heisenberg
and Bohr. Ms. Edwards makes us understand how Bohr would have considered her
a partner in physics as well as a wife and secretary.
As the play comes to its unforgettable conclusion, we are reminded of the
uncertainty of both life and physics; of how Heisenberg, despite the fact
that he worked for the Germans, was not responsible for the death of one
person; of how Bohr went to work for the Americans at Los Alamos and helped
work on a bomb that killed many thousands of people.
In "Postscript to Copenhagen," Michael Frayn writes, “according to the
so-called ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of quantum mechanics…the whole
possibility of saying or thinking anything about the world…depends upon
human observation, and is subject to the limitations which the human mind
imposes, this uncertainty in our thinking is also fundamental to the nature
of the world.” He concludes, “‘Uncertainty’ is not a very satisfactory word
to come at this.” Then he goes on to discuss the various German terms Bohr
and Heisenberg considered using.
I find I must respectfully disagree. I think uncertainty is the perfect word
to describe the “nature of the world.” And perhaps the true danger comes
when leaders and scientists are certain they know the answers, so certain
that there is never any room for doubt.
