‘Copenhagen’ starring Jeff Favorite as Werner Heisenberg, Angel Virgillio as Margrethe Bohr and Thomas Graves as Neils Bohr, focuses on a conversation between two Nobel Prize winning physicists during WWII. Photo by Ashely Horner/LALT
Review By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
The play, “Copenhagen” focuses on a meeting that occurred 84 years ago when Danish physicist Niels Bohr met with German physicist Werner Heisenberg. What were the exact details of this almost century-old conversation? No one really knows but Michael Frayn’s play presents several hypothetical scenarios.
Watching Los Alamos Little Theatre’s production of “Copenhagen”, each scenario feels so relevant to current events that it will make you, the audience member, lean in to listen more closely.
At the very beginning of the play, Jeff Favorite’s Heisenberg breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience, why not re-play the dialogue of that meeting in 1941, all the parties involved are now dead. There is no one left to betray or hurt. Although with the swirl of today’s headlines reporting on the federal government’s mass firings, scientific research getting defunded and many scientists leaving the U.S. for Europe, it would appear Heisenberg is wrong. History is repeating itself. The betrayal continues. As it is said in the play, Germany’s antisemitism and fascist government was pushing out Jewish scientists; they were immigrating to America. Some sciences were abandoned and referred to “Jew science”.
The play is even tied to Los Alamos. Bohr would eventually become a part of the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer is mentioned a few times.
It is incredible that from a simple premise – Heisenberg pays Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, a visit – that there is so much to consider and ponder about in watching this play. Not only is the plot extremely minimal but so are the sets and the cast list. For sets, there’s a door, a small corner of a living room with a chair and a sofa and that is pretty much it. Favorite, Thomas Graves as Neils Bohr and Angel Virgilio as Margrethe Bohr are the only actors. This all really works because the dialogue is the main attraction of “Copenhagen”. And Favorite, Graves and Virgilio really excel in delivering it. These actors masterfully showcase each character’s psyche that you will empathize with all of them.
This was all under the great direction of Emily Stark.
Truth is something that is hotly debated so it seems only fitting that “Copenhagen” doesn’t settle on a single version of what happened during that 1941 meeting but rather how the characters interpreted the meeting. Still, when the lights came on in the theatre, I found myself wondering the same question that Neils Bohr continually asks Heisenberg – why did he come to Copenhagen? Was it to pick Bohr’s brain about the development of the nuclear bomb? Was it to reminisce about happier times or to discuss physics? When Bohr asks this question, Heisenberg always seems to dodge it, and the play doesn’t give a straight answer either. I guess it is up to us, the audience, to make our own interpretation. So, I encourage everyone – go watch “Copenhagen” … lean in and listen closely to uncover what you believe to be true.
The play continues its run 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through May 17 at the Performing Arts Center, 1670 Nectar St., with a 2 p.m. matinee May 11. Tickets at $20/$16 for students and seniors are available at the door an hour before the show and online now at https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/copenhagen. Doors open 30 minutes before showtime.