Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based on events that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It premiered in London in 1998 at the National Theater, running for over 300 shows, starring David Burke (Niels Bohr), Sara Kestelman (Margrethe Bohr), and Matthew Marsh (Werner Heisenberg).
Opened on Broadway at the Royale Theater on April 11, 2000 and ran for 326 shows. Directed by Michael Blakemore, he starred in Philip Bosco (Niels Bohr), Michael Cumpsty (Werner Heisenberg), and Blair Brown (Margrethe Bohr). He won the Tony Award for Best Play, Best Actress in Play, Blair Brown, and Best Direction of a Play (Michael Blakemore).
In 2002, the drama was adapted as a film by Howard Davies, produced by the BBC and presented at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States.
Video Copenhagen (play)
Summary
Werner Heisenberg's spirits, Niels Bohr and wife Bohr Margrethe, met after their deaths to try to answer Margrethe's question in the first line of the drama, "Why did he [Heisenberg] come to Copenhagen?" They spend the rest of the two-act drama reviving experience and presenting, arguing and rejecting theories that can answer that question.
Heisenberg - "No one understands my trip to Copenhagen and I have already explained it for time and time again For Bohr himself and Margrethe For interrogators and intelligence officers, for journalists and The more I explain, the deeper the uncertainty has become.Yeah, I'll be happy to make one more effort. "
Along the way, Heisenberg and Bohr "compiled" several versions of their 1941 exchanges, arguing about the consequences of each potential version of their meeting and the motives behind it. They discussed the idea of ​​nuclear power and its control, the rationale behind building or not building atomic bombs, past uncertainty, and the inevitable future as a manifestation of themselves acting as particles floating through the atom of Copenhagen.
Maps Copenhagen (play)
Character
In the most dramatic works in which characters are based on real people, there is a point where characters deviate from the real person. Michael Frayn tried to keep this difference as small as possible. After studying memoirs and other letters and historical accounts of two physicists, Frayn felt confident in claiming that "The actual words uttered by [characters] are entirely their own." With that in mind, the character description applies to both the representative characters as well as the physicist itself. There is an awful lot known about all the main characters presented in Copenhagen; the following includes pieces of information that are directly relevant and referenced in the work itself.
- Werner Heisenberg was born in 1901 in WÃÆ'¼rzburg, Germany. The son of a university professor, Heisenberg grew up in an environment with a strong emphasis on academics, but was hit by the devastation that World War I handled to Germany at a rather young age. He married Elisabeth Schumacher, also the son of a professor, and they have seven children. He received his doctorate in 1923 from physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, and went to Copenhagen to study quantum mechanics with Niels Bohr in 1924, when he was 22 years old, and succeeded Bohr's assistant, H. A. Kramers. In 1926, the University of Leipzig offered him the opportunity to become the youngest full professor of Germany. Heisenberg is famous for the "Uncertainty Principle," (translated from the German Ungenauigkeit) or Uncategorized Unreleased Relationship, which is then changed to Unbestimmtheit meaning "indeterminate.") In 1927, he and Bohr presented the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. During World War II, Heisenberg worked for Germany, researching atomic technology and toward their nuclear reactor program. After the war, his involvement with the Nazis made him famous in the world of physicists, largely due to the fact that he could give Hitler the means to produce and use nuclear weapons. He continued his research until his death in 1976 in Munich. Niels Bohr was born in 1885, making him 38 when Heisenberg first came to work with him. He married Margrethe Norlund in 1912 in Copenhagen and together they had six sons, two of whom died. Harry Lustig notes his biography that "Most of the world's great theoretical physicists... spend their lifetime at Bohr's Institute." Before the war, his research was instrumental in nuclear research, some of which led to the development of bombs. During the war, however, Bohr lived in occupied Denmark and was somewhat restricted in his research; he fled to Sweden in 1943, just before the SS sweep that would reproach him through his Jewish heritage. In America, he worked at Los Alamos with an atomic bomb until the end of the war. He died in 1962 and survived by his wife, Margrethe. Margrethe Bohr , later known as Dronning or "Queen" Margrethe, was born in 1890 in Denmark. She is deeply involved in her husband's work; he will usually come up with ideas from him, trying to explain them in "simple language." He died in 1984, survived some of his children. His son Hans wrote, "My mother is a natural and irreplaceable center, Dad knows how much she means to her and never missed the opportunity to show her gratitude and love.... Her opinion is her guideline in everyday affairs," and this shows the relationship in the Michael Frayn dialogue.
Genre
Copenhagen can not be labeled only as a comedy or a tragedy; lack of protagonists and direct conflict prevents this in large part. David Rush explores the subgenre of theater, a hybrid form later known as "drama", which he describes as a work that can not be specifically categorized as tragedy, but which he notes involves "serious people who do serious business in a serious way. "Since the characters in Copenhagen are dead, they can not experience a tragic downfall; although there is ingenuity in the argument, it is taken in a very serious light because it considers subjects like war, fear and nuclear weapons. It is almost a "drama", but works in many ways as an expository part in how to present information to an audience.
Style
Construction plot is not linear, because there is no space and time. Sometimes one character will not notice that there are others in the room, and speak as if not to anyone. The world Frayn presents is beyond our conception of the audience, only by the fact that no one who attended the drama ever died. So the world in Copenhagen is between heaven and atom.
It can also be considered to be "inside the head" of an existing character. It is a subjective world, picking up and manipulating history, picking out some events and pounding others together to better compare them. The characters are all plagued by some form of error or other, especially those referring to the atomic bomb, and they are trapped in this world, cursed for ever speculating on that night in Copenhagen in 1941 to determine how the world may have changed. These are all features of the artistic style known as Expressionism.
In the preface to A Dream Play, August Strindberg notes that in this world, "everything is possible and possible... Time and space are not there... Working with... real events as backgrounds, imagination twisted the threads of his thinking and make it into a new pattern. "Copenhagen is the embodiment of these principles.
Repeating images and motifs
Since the concepts in physics and politics are sometimes very complicated or very abstract, Frayn uses several controller images to better connect certain ideas with his audience.
o Skiing and Table Tennis - Both of these activities are referred to as Bohr and Heisenberg hobbies, and both show a rivalry between the two (representatives of the national competition.) They are also used to show speed and Heisenberg's carelessness contrasted with Bohr's prudence and caution.
o Invisible Straight - Anecdote in which Bohr managed to bully himself in a poker game by betting on the straight he thought he had, but he really was not. This principle applies to nuclear weapons, showing that countries will act differently when they think that an opponent can produce nuclear weapons, whether his opponent can or not.
Cap-Pistols, Soil Mining and Nuclear Reactors - This falls into the Toy vs. Weapon theme and once again presents anecdotes from the lives of Bohr and Heisenberg. Their interest in playing with new toys blinds them to the dangers it brings.
- The term "bomb" appears as a looming image literally in many cases, but is used figuratively in some instances, as if it should be a joke, but with such serious implications it can not be found funny. (For example, Heisenberg refers to "bombs gone" in Bohr's head.)
Christian Reaching for the Life-Buoy - Christian is one of Bohr's sons, who tragically drowned when he and Bohr out sailed. The phrase "Christian took the buoy" appeared several times during the play, and each time, the character seems to hold his breath in the hope that this time, Christian will survive. Bohr has concluded that both of them will drown if he plunges to save his son, and this presents an idea of ​​vain heroism, especially with reference to Heisenberg and what must happen if he rejects Hitler's rule.
o "Other Drafts" - Each time a character concludes that the interpretation of their 1941 meeting is incorrect, they call "another draft".
Language
Although dialogue does not conflict with logic, dialogue can not be called realistic in the strictest sense. A line of characters may fade into the next, as if the second person knows exactly what he is going to say; sometimes characters will go into memory and partially revive the previous or younger self in the monologue; and during the show, there is a definite ambiguity whether they are talking to each other or to the audience.
The drama is originally written in English, but real people on the exchange may have had this conversation in Danish or German. But even with the translation in mind, Frayn defends that the words in the script are what the characters really say. In his post-script, he writes, "If this requires justification, I can only appeal to Heisenberg himself." Understandably, Frayn needs to present the characters in an interesting and dramatic light, and illustrates the arrangements that are not visited by living people, so the accuracy of such a dialogue is subject to less degrees.
Ordinary languages ​​ and scientific languages ​​ operate in this game. There are some instances when two physicists start talking too scientifically for many to understand, and one of them will comment that they must return to simple language, to explain it in a way that Margrethe will understand. Even for this effort, criticism arises about the complexity of the game and the difficulty for viewers to understand. A writer for The Commonweal commented on the premiere of Broadway, saying that "endless brain jumps can... become frustrating."
Production history
London Premiere - 1998
Copenhagen opened at the National Theater in London and ran for over 300 shows, starring David Burke as Niels Bohr, Sara Kestelman as Margrethe Bohr, and Matthew Marsh as Werner Heisenberg. It was directed by Michael Blakemore.
"Copenhagen" was transferred to the Duchess Theater in London's West End, where he ran from 8 February 1999, for over 750 gigs. It has a "second" player when it opens in the West End, which is responsible for performing at least one matinee per week. The second cast consists of David Baron as Niels Bohr, Corinna Marlowe as Margarethe Bohr, and William Brand as Werner Heisenberg, and after six months, they replaced the original player for the rest of the West End run.
Broadway Opening - April 2000
Continuing under the direction of Michael Blakemore, opened on Broadway at the Royale Theater on April 11th and ran for 326 shows. Starring Philip Bosco as Bohr, Michael Cumpsty as Heisenberg and Blair Brown as Margrethe, he later won the Tony Award for Best Play, along with the other two for Best Play in a Play (Blair Brown), and Best Direction of a Play (Michael Blakemore). But even for his success, Frayn admitted in an article that "A number of commentators expressed their misgivings about the entire company." Some critics noted that it was heavy with scientific dialogue, a bit too heavy for the general public. Although a writer from the World of Physics called it a "brilliant theater," Charles Spencer, of the Daily Telegraph, wrote, "I feel that my brain is being stretched to break the point - far beyond the peak point, in fact. "
Film TV - 2002
The drama was adapted as a television movie in 2002, with Daniel Craig as Heisenberg, Stephen Rea as Niels Bohr, and Francesca Annis as Margrethe Bohr. The film substantially slashed the drama script, eliminating several recurring themes, and most of the material that formed the community of scientists in Copenhagen. It also left an abstract staging of the theatrical version that supported the setting in the city of Copenhagen, in the old house of Bohr.
Latest revival
The drama has a lot of production and revival, including:
- The Royal Lyceum Theater in Edinburgh, with Tom Mannion as Niels Bohr, Sally Edwards as Margrethe Bohr, and Owen Oakeshott as Werner Heisenberg. It was directed by Tony Cownie.
- New Vic's Theater in Staffordshire with John O'Mahony as Niels Bohr, Jamie Hinde as Heisenberg and Deborah Maclaren as Margrethe Bohr. It was directed by James Dacre.
- The Living Theater in New York City with Lou Vuolo as Bohr, Mary Ann Hay as Margrethe, and Keith Herron as Heisenberg. It was directed by Anne Pasquale.
- Lyceum Theater in Sheffield with Henry Goodman as Niels Bohr, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Werner Heisenberg and Barbara Flynn as Margrethe. It was directed by David Grindley.
- Ranga Shankara in Bangalore with Prakash Belawadi as Niels Bohr, Nakul Bhalla as Werner Heisenberg and Sharanya Ramprakash as Margrethe. It was directed by Prakash Belawadi.
- Pratyay Amateur Theater Center (???????????????????????) of Kolhapur (State of Maharashtra, India), in Marathi translation by Dr Sharad Navare (???????), directed by Dr. Sharad Bhuthadiya (?????????), with Sagar Talashikar (?????????) as Werner Heisenberg, Dr Sharad Bhuthadiya as Neils Bohr and Meghana Khare (???????) as Margrethe.
- Studio The Michael Pilch Studio University of Oxford in October 2016 with Rupert Stonehill as Heisenberg, George Varley as Bohr and Miranda Collins as Margrethe. It was produced by Emma Irving, directed by Archie Thomson, and an assistant directed by Jack Cammack.
- The Lantern Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, directed by Kittson O'Neill, with Charles McMahon as Heisenberg, Sally Mercer as Margrethe Bohr, and Paul L. Nolan as Niels Bohr.
Radio - January 2013
Adapted and directed by Emma Harding for BBC Radio 3 starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Werner Heisenberg, Greta Scacchi as Margrethe Bohr and Simon Russell Beale as Niels Bohr.
- Balch Arena Theater at Tufts University with Artoun Festekjian as Niels Bohr, Maya Grodman as Margrethe Bohr, and Alex Kaufman as Werner Heisenberg. It was directed by Michael Roubey. February 2013
Awards and honors
- 1998 Night Standards Awards for the Best Play
- Drama Desk Award for the Best New Play
- Dramatic Criticism of the New York Drama Circle
- Tony Award for the Best Play
- Prix MoliÃÆ'¨re Historical debate
- Deutsche Physik
- Doctor Atom
- The history of nuclear weapons
- Operation Alsos (postwar attempt to measure progress of the German bomb project)
- Epsilon Operation
- The Manhattan Project (Allied war bomb project)
- Uranverein (Nazi war bomb project)
- Cassidy, David C. Uncertainty: life and science Werner Heisenberg . W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, NY. 1992.
- Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen . New York City. Anchor Book: Random House, Inc. 2000.
- Lustig, Harry. "People's Biography in Copenhagen." University of New York City Graduate Center: American Social History Project.
- Hurry up, David. The Student Guide for Playing Analysis . Southern Illinois Printing Press, 2005. Carbondale, IL
- Spencer, Charles. review Copenhagen at The Daily Telegraph , in the Full Review. Retrieved 2-25-09.
- Ziman, John. review Copenhagen in World of Physics , in the Full Review. Retrieved 2-25-09.
- Zoglin, Richard, review on Copenhagen in Time , in The Complete Review. Retrieved 2-25-09.
- Copenhagen on the Internet Broadway Database
- Copenhagen on the Broadway Internet Database
- Reviews from the American Institute of Physics
- Documents relating to the 1941 meeting released in 2002 by Niels Bohr Archive
- The American Repertory Theater Production, directed by Scott Zigler
- Michael Frayn's Copenhagen in Debate: A History and Document Essay at the 1941 Meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg Symposium at the University of New York City Postgraduate Center
- Heisenberg wants to help Bohr. A new document about the meeting of two physicists in Copenhagen in 1941. (In German) In: Berliner Zeitung, April 5, 2002
The meeting took place in September 1941 when Bohr and Heisenberg were 55 and 39 years old respectively. Heisenberg has worked with Bohr in Copenhagen for several years starting in 1924.
The Heisenberg historian remains divided on their own interpretation of the event. Frayn's show in 1998 drew more attention to what was previously a particularly scientific discussion. The collection of historical essays fascinated by the drama was published in English in 2005.
Much of the early controversy comes from the 1956 letter Heisenberg sent to journalist Robert Jungk after reading the German edition of Jungk's book, Brighter of a Thousand Suns (1956). In the letter, Heisenberg describes how he came to Copenhagen to discuss with Bohr about his moral objection to the scientists working on nuclear weapons, but how he failed to say this clearly before the talks stopped. Jungk published a quote from a letter in the Danish edition of 1956 which, out of context, made it seem as if Heisenberg claimed to have sabotaged the German bomb project on moral grounds. (The entire text of the letter indicates Heisenberg is careful not to claim this.) Bohr was furious after reading this extract in his copy of his book, feeling that this was wrong and that the 1941 meeting had proved to him that Heisenberg was quite happy to produce nuclear weapons for Germany.
After the drama inspired many academic and media debates during the 1941 meeting, the Niels Bohr Archives in Copenhagen released to the public all the sealed documents associated with the meeting, a move largely aimed at resolving historical arguments over what it contained. Among the documents were the undelivered letters compiled by Bohr to Heisenberg in 1957 about Jungk's book and other topics.
This draft has proved significant in some respects. First, they proved relatively consistent with Heisenberg's memory of a meeting given to Jungk in 1956, which means that the course of the conversation can now be fairly established. Bohr and Heisenberg agree that Heisenberg started the visit by declaring to Bohr that nuclear weapons can now be imagined. As Heisenberg wrote to Jungk,
This conversation may begin with my question as to whether or not it is true for physicists to devote themselves to wartime with uranium problems - because it is possible that progress in this field could have serious consequences in warfare techniques.
Bohr confirmed this by writing
It must make a very strong impression on me that from the beginning you stated that you were convinced that war, if it lasted long enough, would be decided by atomic weapons.
Heisenberg reiterated his belief in the technical viability of nuclear weapons creation. As Heisenberg remembers:
He [Bohr] replied as far as I remember with a reply question, "Do you really think that uranium fission can be used for weapons development?" I may reply: "I know that this is in principle possible, but it will require tremendous technical effort, which, can only hope, can not be realized in this war." Bohr surprised by my answer.
The Bohr draft letter is consistent with this:
I am not responding to this at all, but as you may think of this as an expression of doubt, you tell how in the past years you have devoted yourself almost exclusively to the question and quite sure that it can be done...
(This is interesting, as it contradicts the critic's suggestion that Heisenberg's miscalculations have made him wrongly conclude that the atomic weapon is not worth it.According to Bohr's later notes Heisenberg then told Bohr that he did not come to discuss the technical aspects of potential weapons:
Heisenberg says explicitly that he does not want to go into technical details but Bohr must understand that he knows what he is talking about because he has spent 2 years working exclusively on this question.
Unfortunately, because Heisenberg's concerns about his discussions about details of Germany's nuclear efforts with someone in the occupied country will be illegal - his remarks are very vague. Indeed, Bohr's letter noted that Heisenberg spoke "in vague terms," ​​from which Bohr was only able to form an "impression" of Heisenberg's efforts. Bohr writes this:
I listen to this without speaking because [a] big problem for mankind is a matter where, apart from our personal friendship, we should be considered as the representative of two parties involved in deadly combat. That my silence and gravity, as you wrote in the letter, can be regarded as an expression of surprise in your report that it is possible to make the atomic bomb a very strange misunderstanding, which must be caused by the great tension within yourself. mind. From the day three years before when I realized that slow neutrons can only cause fission in Uranium 235 and not 238, it is clear to me that a bomb with a certain effect can be produced by separating uranium. In June 1939 I even gave a public lecture in Birmingham on uranium fission, where I talked about the effects of such a bomb but of course added that technical preparation would be so great that people do not know how quickly they can be overcome. If anything in my behavior can be interpreted as a surprise, it does not come from such reports but from news, as I must understand it, that Germany participates vigorously in the race to become first with atomic weapons.
This careful discussion, combined with Bohr's shocked reaction to him, seemed to cut the discussion between the two. Thus, the letters Bohr could not solve the question posed by the game of Copenhagen, from what Heisenberg had tried to convey to Bohr.
Heisenberg's comments that he knows about the potential to mobilize fission uranium, appear to counter the arguments of critics such as Rose and Bernstein that miscalculation in 1940 about eligibility, rather than moral objections, led to Heisenberg not pursuing nuclear weapons development.
Finally, the Bohr 1957 draft letter, written 16 years after the meeting, signaled a conflict between Bohr and Heisenberg. Heisenberg's letter to his wife, written on the night of his departure from Copenhagen, gave no indication of a broken bone. In it, he narrates his last night with Bohr as a very pleasant and unremarkable thing: "Today I am once again, with WeizsÃÆ'¤cker, at Bohr's. In many ways, this is very good, conversations spin for most of the night in around the pure human worry, Bohr was reading aloud, I played Mozart Sonata (a-Major). "
In a March 2006 interview Ivan Supek, one of Heisenberg's disciples and friends, commented that " Copenhagen is a bad game" and that "Frayn mixes up some things". Supek also claims that WeizsÃÆ'¤cker is the main character of the meeting. Allegedly, "Heisenberg and WeizsÃÆ'¤cker came to Bohr in uniforms of German troops WeizsÃÆ'¤cker tried to persuade Bohr to mediate peace between Britain and Germany and Heisenberg practically rely entirely on his political judgment". Supek received these details in a secret conversation with Margrethe who thought she would never publish them. But Supek feels it is "his duty to announce these facts so that future generations can know the truth about the Bohr-Heisenberg meeting".
Supek's statements about Bohr's memories of the "Bohr-Heisenberg meeting" blended the visit. Since Heisenberg can only visit Bohr in occupied Denmark on behalf of the German government, Heisenberg is obliged to make a public lecture on behalf of the Government monitored by German government officials. Heisenberg tried to express his opinion later during a private discussion with Bohr. Heisenberg's letters to his wife and then to Jungk put his conversation with Bohr on Wednesday night. Either he talks to Bohr for a walk, or at his residence. [3] [7] Bohr, Supek, and Heisenberg described the meeting differently
Physicist referenced
During the show, a number of famous physicists are mentioned. Many of them are referenced in the context of their work with Bohr or Heisenberg. This is the sequence that appears in the script:
See also
References
Note
Bibliography
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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