It is 1941, Copenhagen, and Nazi-occupied Denmark is home to acclaimed physicist, and one of the pioneers of fission, Niels Bohr, and devoted, protective wife Margrethe, who are visited by the Nazi’s leading physicist, and Bohr’s mentee, Werner Heisenberg.
The meeting between the pair has been the topic of great speculation in the 80 years since their encounter, with no true definitive account of what was, or was not said, ever made public. It is clear, though, that the topic of conversation was atomic bombs, and whether they should or should not be pursued. What makes this encounter so intriguing, however, is the positioning of the parties involved. Niels (Richard Schiff), a fierce critic of the use of atomic weapons, is on the side of the Allies, who eventually do go on to use the bomb, while Damien Molony’s Heisenberg, a leading Nazi scientist, and who suffers the brunt of Niels’s fury, becomes a mere spectator to the weapon he enquires about.
It is a production, aptly similar to the atomic process discussed, split into multiple parts. At the nucleus of the plot is the 1941 conversation between the pair, and what was or was not exchanged, yet this is contrasted by conversations much later, such as in 1947, where, as an Allied prisoner, Heisenberg meets Niels to attempt to get their stories straight, much to the latter’s stubbornness. Copenhagen soon, then, becomes a production rich in retrospect, where the characters reflect on decisions and traumas of the past, and the consequences of their interactions.
As Niels, Schiff’s portrayal is defiant and fierce. Schiff brings to the fore Niels’s clear disappointment in the path Heisenberg, whom he mentored and saw as a son, has taken, and struggles to reconcile with this even in the most desperate exchanges. It is a stoic portrayal, and one that Schiff delivers with ease, particularly capturing the fragility of an aged Niels, reflecting on this infamous conversation and also his own role in the production of the atom bomb, and how his actions, even indirectly, contributed to murder on an unimaginable scale.
Meanwhile, Alex Kingston, as Niels’s wife Margrethe, is keenly defensive of her husband, refusing to see any ill in her husband’s actions in establishing the science behind the atom bomb. While the two contrasting physicists thrash it out, Margrethe is often positioned by director Michael Longhurst as an observer, carefully, as the audience is, studying both men. Yet Margrethe’s love and devotion to her husband, and the trauma of her persecuted experiences under Nazi occupation, are clear, with Kingston powerfully bringing these to the fore. This is particularly clear in a magnificent monologue during an interrogative second half where Margrethe’s patience with stubborn Heisenberg runs thin.
As Heisenberg, Molony’s characterisation is deliberately complex, which is developed nicely through Michael Frayn’s script. Heisenberg, working on behalf of Hitler’s rule, is caught in the crossfire between duty and morality, and it is a neat touch that the script positions Heisenberg as the morally outraged figure responding to the atomic weaponry. Molony is most effective, though, during his fierce exchanges with Schiff, where the pair brilliantly exchange conversations about science, morality and duty in ways that clearly expose the toll both of their roles and positions have taken on them. In this respect, Copenhagen is a fascinating study of the imposition of duty, even in the most devastating of consequences, and the human cost, not just of those who are victims to the weapon, but those victims of making it too.
It is also a production aided by Joanna Scotcher’s terrific set design. Making full use of a revolve, the Scotcher’s design blends the chaos of atomic splitting with the spiralling of the conversation and memories of the characters neatly too. The inclusion of the revolve is an inspired choice which fully supports the piece, yet this is compounded by the decision to surround the circular stage with a shallow pool of water, a reminder not just to the Bohrs’ drowned son but also to the cooling function of water in nuclear physics, ironically used here around a conversation that is anything but reduced in temperature.
Although the production does run a little too long, almost hitting three hours, with all three swept up in the endless cycles of memory and navigating, and renegotiating, the past, Copenhagen largely manages to maintain its intrigue in an engaging revival. Margrethe’s bleak outlook on the consequences of mass nuclear weaponry is stark and brutally bleak, and a fiercely pertinent reminder of the fragility of life as we know it, especially in such uncertain times. It is a conversation rooted in World War Two, yet one that feels distinctly modern and urgent eighty years later.
