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Minimum Order $15

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28972 Orchard Lake Rd.

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Farmington Hills

(VA) 538-0664

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Lincoln Shopping Center
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(248) 354-5959

History Revisited

Tony-nominated "Copenhagen" examines the
relationship between German scientist Werner
Heisenberg and his Danish and
half-Jewish mentor, Niels Bohr.

BRAM BOROSON

scientists who remained in Germany,
could conceivably have set his nation
Special to the Jewish News
on the path to atomic weaponry. Why
didn't he? Did he make a moral stand
IV orld War II ended as
against the Nazis or an uncharacteristic
American atomic bombs
blunder in his physics? And why did
fell on Hiroshima and
Bohr's relations with his prize pupil chill
Nagasaki, killing
after their 1941 Copenhagen meeting?
100,000 people instantly, dooming
In 1943, in danger of arrest
more to radiation sickness.
by the Nazis, Bohr and his
Could the war have ended with
Philip Bosco,
family left Denmark on a fish-
victorious Nazis dropping
Blair Brown
ing boat in the middle of the
and Michael
atomic bombs on - London or
Cumps ty star in night. From Sweden, the
Paris? That, of course, did not
"copen hagen." British flew Bohr to England,
happen, possibly because of
but because his head was too
what a brilliant and brash
large
for
the oxygen mask, he arrived
German physicist, Werner Heisenberg,
unconscious. He eventually came to
discussed with his Danish and half-
Los Alamos, N.M., the center of the
Jewish mentor, Niels Bohr, in a visit to
Manhattan Project, where, under the
occupied Denmark in 1941.
code name of Nicholas Baker, he pro-
That visit provides the framework of
vided technical and moral support for
Michael Frayn's new play, Copenhagen,
the scientists working on it.
which is nominated for a Tony Award
Frayn sets before us the moral and
for Best Play.
human
dilemmas of these friends in
Many of Germany's top atomic sci-
wartime. Instead of a literal re-enact-
entists were Jewish and fled to America,
ment of the events of 1941, we see the
where they contributed to the
ghosts of Heisenberg, Bohr and his
Manhattan Project that built the bomb.
wife, Margrethe, struggle to re-create
Heisenberg, the most brilliant of the
the events themselves.
Bram Boroson has a Ph.D. in astro-
The play has a musical structure,
physics and studies neutron stars in
with recurring motifs and themes:
binary systems at the NASA Goddard
• the Bohrs' loss of a son in a boat-
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
ing accident;
This article first appeared in The Jewish
• Bohr's dismissing as "very inter-
Standard, based in Teaneck, N.J.
esting" ideas he thinks are ridiculous;

• Heisenberg's repeating his entrance
and walk in the woods with Bohr.
As the characters construct and
deconstruct events and motives, we
begin to grapple with the moral ambi-
guity Heisenberg feels, and Bohr's
mixed affection and disdain for his
son-surrogate.
Margrethe Bohr (Blair Brown) feels
more disdain than affection —
Heisenberg was never her colleague —
and plays the role of prosecuting
attorney (Some theater goers are seat-
ed in a tier above the circular set,
evoking an imaginary jury — or
observers at an operating room.)
While the play makes you think and
re-think, it hits a few wrong notes now
and then. Because the characters are
themselves re-creating events, they have
20-20 hindsight, in which all mention
of nuclear fission is portentous.
Philip Bosco's Bohr, a dignified but
down-to-earth elder scientist, speaks
quietly, as did the historical Bohr. But
I imagine Bohr as more elliptical and
searching (he once said that we should
not speak more clearly than we think),
while the play's Bohr demands that all
ideas be expressed in language that his
wife can understand (this probably
benefits the audience as well).
Michael Cumptsy's Heisenberg is
full of physical energy, balancing this
play of ideas, and he paces the stage,
grabs onto chairs (the only props), and
addresses the audience imploringly.
Bohr and Heisenberg reminisce
about their heroic creation of quantum
mechanics and mine their work for
metaphors for their lives. Although the
real Bohr certainly did try to draw
lessons for life from his "principle of
complementarity," some of this discus-
sion has the feel of the glossy New Age
popularizations of quantum physics.
Did Boht really argue that the role
of observers in relativity placed
humans at the center of the world
again, after Copernicus and Darwin
took our planet and species off that
throne?
The meaning of relativity is more
subtle than that, and Bohr's thoughts
were nothing if not subtle. Of course,
subtle thoughts rarely make successful
theater.
Copenhagen succeeds, not by perfect
fidelity to history or science, but by
finding provocative drama in a meet-
ing of scholars:

❑

Copenhagen is playing at the
Royale Theatre in New York
City. (212) 239-6200