The infinite possibility in a moment is familiar to anyone who enjoys torturing themselves over where life went awry. You know, anyone with regrets cycling forever in their mind. But what if those regrets are more than an awkward moment at a party? What if those regrets are matters of life, death, and the course of global change?
Those are the stakes playwright Michael Frayn tackled in his Copenhagen script, which originally premiered in 1998 at the National Theatre in London and won a well-deserved Tony for Best Play on Broadway in 2000. In his dizzying script, Frayn spins wild theories about a 1941 meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, when German-born Heisenberg visited part-Jewish Bohr in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen. That meeting actually happened. Frayn uses the two physicists and Bohr’s wife Margrethe as chess pieces to conjecture an endlessly litigated moment, parsing each particle for meaning. He was inspired by Heisenberg’s own Uncertainty Principle, stating that the position and speed of an object cannot be observed at the same time. In other words, those closest to the moment can’t see its impact clearly. They must all rotate around the core of the matter.
What ensues is a gorgeous integration of scientific theories and moral ethics, a master class in exploding threads of thought. The way Frayn introduces symbols for the scholarly approaches of the physicists – whether through skiing, poker, or Catholic hierarchy – propel the story and loop around toward deliciously satisfying payoffs. Sure, it results in a long play, with Sterling Stage Austin’s production clocking an almost three-hour run time. It’s tempting to think maybe something could have been cut to shorten time, especially since it’s such an intimate play. Three characters, all onstage at once. The amount of monologuing is staggering. But what could a company remove? The text is so complex that any subtraction would massively undercut the script. The layers of dialogue are tight, and while they may hurt the brain, the emotional payoff is worth it. Just … caffeinate beforehand.
Because this dense script is a ton of text for actors to chew through. And while the performers were more than dedicated to the daunting task, on opening weekend there were still a few stumbles that needed smoothing out. But with this Bible of a script, full of quantum theories and nods to early 20th century scientists, it’s easy to forgive a flubbed line or two. Of the three, Meredith O’Brien’s Margrethe was the most confident, fully embodying the voice of reason amidst the two men with their heads in the atom cloud. She wisely interjects to clarify or calm every time the discussion gets too unwieldy. As for the two scientists, their physical presence worked well for the characters. As Bohr, Michael Stuart towered over Scot Friedman’s Heisenberg. Stuart’s Bohr is a giant onstage, visually matching his role as the atomic physics guru, played perfectly in every mentoring walk or frenzied argument. As Heisenberg, Friedman exhibited awe mixed with ego, leading to a delicious tension between the three characters.
The performances were all the more impactful thanks to a sparse set design, also by Stuart. Copenhagen was presented in the round, audience members as a jury rimming a circular stage. All action was restricted to the actors and three metal chairs, enhanced by atmospheric sound design and dynamic lighting (Carl Ziegler and Justin LaVergne, respectively). The stage itself had a large painted circle in the center, orbited by three smaller dots. Under Karen Sneed’s direction, the actors zipped around that center-stage nucleus, electrons generating energy with their own S-curves, trying to harness the power of distilling a moment to absolute truth. It’s an intelligent touch, a bow atop the show’s dissertation of logic and emotion.
Copenhagen manages to add a poignant humanity to matters of science. It’s startling to feel the prescience in these messages of how leadership and choice can impact the world. I suppose that’s the genius of this script. No matter when the play is produced, the good and evil consequences of decisions will feel applicable to society. Do those choices have any effect in the grand scheme of humanity? The result is a Schrödinger’s cat of known and unknowable, explored beautifully in Frayn’s script.
Copenhagen
Sterling Stage Austin
Through November 24
This article appears in November 8 • 2024.
