For 60 years now, life on earth has been lived in the shadow of nuclear weapons. The implications of this are hard to underestimate: For six decades just about every sentient human has realized that apocalypse is possible, that life and world both might be destroyed at any moment.
For the 45 years of the Cold War, it looked like the spark might result from U.S.-Soviet enmity; but a mishap, a misunderstood order, a renegade pilot or bureaucrat might have started the conflagration even in the absence of some "legitimate" command. Now that the Cold War is over, the threat still continues: various small states have acquired nuclear weapons, and others like Iran and North Korea are apparently arming.
As if a president or prime minister with a nervous trigger finger weren't worry enough, there's also the possibility now of nuclear terrorism, that some hatred-filled loner will want to place his name in history with one unspeakable act. Of course, we all have to go on living as if the cataclysm won't happen; still, since 1945, there's been a sword of Damocles over our necks. It would be absurd to assert that we're not somehow affected. However much we repress it, the danger is there, at this moment.
For such creatures as we've become, then, knowing what we know, there's a play: It's called Copenhagen, and it's written in what you might call the poetry of our climate. It's about war, and physics, and several kinds of uncertainty. It's about ions of uranium and about chain reactions that level cities.
It puts in our presence two mild-mannered physicists, the sorts of men we would hardly notice if they hadn't managed, through their research, to place the entire earth at peril. Sometimes their dialogue is, let's admit it, boring: All this talk of calculus, of rates of diffusion and complementarity would be intolerable if we didn't know that these are precisely the things etched on the bell that may yet toll for us.
At other times, we follow the conversations very well: We see that these men are great friends, that their friendship is based on a shared love of science, and that that love is so strong it seldom stops to consider consequences. Yes, the play has a hero: Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who remained on our side, on the side of the Allies. But from a different perspective, neither Bohr nor his German friend Werner Heisenberg is anything so simple as hero or villain.
These are the pleasant, unconscious weavers of our worst nightmare. These are primal figures, archetypes, first causes. What drives them, perversely, is love of truth. We're still trying to live with the deadly product of their labors.
There's a plot to the play: It's 1941, and the Nazis have invaded and occupied Denmark. Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, calls on his old teacher Niels Bohr and on his wife Margrethe in Copenhagen. The point of the visit is unclear, and is the subject of speculation as the play progresses.
Has Heisenberg come to crow at his former mentor, to enjoy the mantle of conqueror? Perhaps the opposite is the case: Maybe Heisenberg sees that their physics will lead to weaponry, and wants to obtain Bohr's agreement to withhold the knowledge from those – on either side – who would exploit it.
Another possibility: Heisenberg is already helping the Nazis make the bomb, and, tortured by his choice, comes to Bohr for absolution; or maybe Heisenberg is only contemplating such work, and comes to Bohr for moral guidance.
Author Michael Frayn makes the most of this ambiguity: he wants us to see that uncertainty and complementarity aren't just elements of physics, but pertain to all human motives. There's a little more plot: After exchanging some pleasantries, the two men go out for a walk. But the jaunt only lasts 10 minutes, and then Bohr, apparently furious, hastily wishes Heisenberg farewell.
What was said during the walk? More speculation, more uncertainty. And the rest is talk: about physics, personalities, politics, children. But mostly about physics, the one subject that elicits something like joy from the two scientists.
In only one case in Copenhagen is the acting nearly as good as it needs to be: Jessica K. Peterson as Margrethe Bohr is earthily human, suspicious of Heisenberg, protective of her husband, conspicuously burdened by the war and the occupation. But Dan Leonard as Bohr, while managing some prodigiously complicated dialogue with aplomb, comes across as a country vicar – solid, dependable, but emotionally limited.
As Heinsenberg, Scott Bellot isn't much more dimensional: Though he also manages Frayn's difficult language skillfully, he's all surface and no depth. One certainly can't imagine him harboring any great secret.
Even though the two main actors leave something to be desired, Nancy Cole's direction is terrific. She makes a mightily complicated play move efficiently, employing John Lott's busy lighting to move us from present to past, and from one character to the next.
Theresa Zacek's minimalist set consists of three metal chairs on a floor of painted swirls and ovals – the paths left by electrons, perhaps, as they carom in their delirious orbits. And Scott Sanczel's moving sound design supports the action with appropriately portentous music.
But the real attraction of Copenhagen isn't its plot or its direction, its acting or its design – the attraction is that in this play, for once, we meet the makers of our Great Distress. We see what drives them, what pleases them, how terribly ordinary they are. Even at its most challenging, most nearly incomprehensible, Copenhagen seems to whisk us from the margins to the center of things, where the real decisions are made in hurried equations and ineffable logarithms. The psyche has lived in this edifice for 60 years; now, for a change, we meet two of the architects. Note how likeable they seem. Note how oblivious.
We carry on, anxiously, in spite of their science.
Shakespeare in Tampa For those readers who feel, like I do, that we don't get nearly enough Shakespeare in this area, there's a partial solution on the horizon. The touring troupe known as The Acting Company is coming to Tampa on March 9, bringing the bard's early comedy Two Gentlemen of Verona to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Two Gentlemen isn't one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, but it's an enjoyable early work about two so-called friends in love with the same woman. Even Shakespeare started small. If for no other reason, go for a taste of genius-in-the-bud. Two Gentlemen of Verona plays at TBPAC's Ferguson Hall at 8 p.m., Wed., March 9. Tickets are $19.50-$29.50. Call 813-229-STAR.
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2005.