Copenhagen

Based on the true events of 1941, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen explores the ideas of perception, perspective, memory and truth. Niels Bohr, considered the father of quantum physics, was a Danish Jew living in Copenhagen with his wife and chronicler, Margrethe. Since the end of the First World War, he gathered the greatest scientific minds in Europe around him, pushing the boundaries of physics and expanding our knowledge of the universe. Then, in 1924, a new mind joined Bohr’s think tank: Warner Heisenberg. For the next three years, Bohr and Heisenberg refined quantum physics, developed quantum mechanics and redefined the focus of physics for the second half of the century. Then the Second World War broke out.

Heisenberg had returned to his native Germany. As a high ranking physicist in the Nazi Party, he was instrumental in the search for atomic supremacy. By the end of the war, Bohr himself was decisive in the Allies development of the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1924, on a state visit to occupied Denmark, Heisenberg orchestrated a return visit to his friends and colleagues Niels and Margrethe. But, after a private conversation between the two physicists, the friendship of Bohr and Heisenberg was over.

But what was in that conversation? What could cause these two scientific colossi to fall out? A question that has baffled historians ever since.  Here in Frayn’s Copenhagen, Bohr and Heisenberg dissect the events of that night – in plain language for the benefit of Margrethe – reassessing each influence again and again, looking deeper into their actions, motives and emotional involvement.

Truly, here is a show that questions why we do the things that we do, illuminates the complexities of memory, and opens the audience up to the beauty and precision of uncertainty.