Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen”: Giving high school existentialism a bad name
We saw Michael Frayn’s Tony-award-winning play, “Copenhagen,” last night. Disappointing.
It’s about the mysterious meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in 1941 in Newark, NJ. (Nope. In Copenhagen. Just kidding. Haha.) The play goes over various “drafts” of the meeting, trying out possible explanations of why Heisenberg, a loyal German (or is he??), would seek out his former mentor, a half-Jewish Dane living in Nazi-occupied Denmark. Heisenberg was the head of the German effort to create an atomic bomb (or was he??), and Bohr snuck out of Denmark and joined the Manhattan project (or did he?? … well, yes, he did). The play has some crackling good scenes as the two men fill us in on Heisenberg’s role in the Nazi effort. (Bohr’s wife is the third person in the play, but she’s just annoying, given to saying to the audience things like ‘And then: Silence.’ Embarrassing.) But it’s over-written and, worse, depends upon a stupid pun: Y’see, Heisenberg is famous for his Uncertainty Principle, and all of human understanding is also uncertain, so since both use the word “uncertainty,” they’ve got to be the same thing, right? So, let’s make a play about it.
Yech.
Say, I have an idea! Let’s write a play called “Croton” about Pythagoras. It will draw a dramatic parallel (so to speak) between Pythagoras’ theorom about right angles and his own uprightness. “It is all a matter of finding and living the right angle,” he will say. “After all, aren’t we all a hypoteneuse?”
Or we could do one called “Strasbourg” about Louis Pasteur’s family life, because just as is his work confirmed germ theory — small bodies pass from one to another, changing everyone they touch — his wife and he pass their children back and forth, each time changed by that gentle touch. Also, he had an infectious laugh and a contagious enthusiasm.
Or how’d you like to invest in this sure-fire winner: “Naugatuck.” It tells the story of Charles Goodyear, who discovered vulcanized rubber quite accidentally — or was it on purpose? — and who lived a “vulcanized” life because, well, um, you see, things happen sorta accidentally – or on purpose? – especially when we bump into fiery emotions that transform us into more rigid and yet more durable beings. Yeah, that’s it!
And then: Silence.
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