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COPENHAGEN
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Memorably staged at the National Theatre, Copenhagen
is the odd one out in Frayn's canon.
As a writer of brilliant
comedies, where satire tosses and turns under sheets of exquisitely
embroidered farce, Frayn's biggest hit came with the hysterical
"play within a play" fiasco Noises Off. Film work
such as the John Cleese comedy Clockwise and the touching TV
play First and Last have showed off Frayn as a fine observer
of people. But in Copenhagen he turns to history, and a moral
conundrum so trenchant that at points it overtakes the carefully
reconstructed plot in the viewer's mind.
For every visual image there is an imaginary imp hovering behind
it asking us to see a wider picture
The play remembers a meeting that took place in 1941 between two
physicists, the Danish Niels Bohr and German Werner Heisenberg.
As friends they had collaborated on crucial work that led to the
atomic bomb, but World War II placed them on opposite sides. Heisenberg
arranges a mysterious trip to see Bohr and his wife. The meeting
that follows, rich in splendid dialogue and fine acting, tests our
feelings on both the moral responsibilities of the scientist, and
the link between a man in wartime and the country he unavoidably
represents when in an alien land.
Bohr's Denmark is a small, occupied state. Heisenberg's Germany
is a massive world power certain of victory in a war zone not yet
tipped in the balance by America's intervention. The two main protagonists
have the weights of their own worlds on their shoulders, and in
casting Stephen Rea, Daniel Craig and Francesca Annis, three careful
and magnetic performers, this edgy production is in safe hands.
The simple direction pleases too; the opening shots especially evoke
a cold, doomy land, while the lucid, erudite language paints in
the vivid colours between the greys.
As a stage play Copenhagen evoked a remarkable sense of place and
time. On television we have the luxury of seeing the world the play
inhabits first hand. But this in no way blunts the impact. For every
visual image there is an imaginary imp hovering behind it asking
us to see a wider picture. There lies Frayn's triumph, and the secret
of the play's ability to haunt the mind long after it's finished.
Simon Farquhar
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