Last night I saw Copenhagen by Michael Frayn played to perfection at the Grove Theatre Eastbourne.
The play focuses on a meeting between Werner von Heisenberg, most famous as the discoverer of the Uncertainty Principle, and his old mentor Niels Bohr, one of the fathers of quantum physics, in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen in 1941. Why did Heisenberg seek the meeting and how was this meeting bound up with the failure of the Nazis to build an atom bomb?
It’s a play of ideas in which three people discuss quantum physics and morality. It isn’t easy. So much depends on the actors to bring it alive so that the audience (a) understand the issues and (b) are entertained. Last night Steve Scott was superb as a surprisingly emotional Heisenberg and Mark Jefferis was a perfectly phlegmatic Bohr. The third role is that of Margrethe, Bohr’s wife. It’s an interesting role in that it functions on several different levels: it means that the physics must be explained in a way that non-physicists can understand, but most of all the character can be used to explore the conflict between the two old friends, now on different sides of a war, and negotiate some sort of understanding. Not only did the brilliant Annie Bennett fulfil these requirements, she also brought out the steady naturalness of the character, making what could have been an also-ran part into full equity with the other two.
The technicals, operated by Camber Sands, were faultless and the use of sound effects (not mentioned in the script) enhanced the drama and the understanding of what the characters were saying.
All in all it was a most entertaining evening. Those in the audience I spoke to and overheard had all, like me, thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Another successful production from the increasingly ambitious Grove.
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