1941 and a meeting of physics Nobel Prize
laureates, once colleagues, now finding themselves on different sides,
Danish professor Niels Bohr played by Tom Rees and Germany's Werner
Heisenberg, head of the Nazi nuclear programme, played by Stuart Wishart.
Copenhagen
The Nonentities
The Rose Theatre, Kidderminster
*****
If we take Albert Einstein out of the
equation, or matrix calculus as they would probably have it, and
perhaps, more recently, Robert Oppenheimer after his biopic, theoretical
physicists don’t make it on to even the bottom half of a Z list of
celebrities. They are the stars of a galaxy far distant to the world
most of us understand.
Yet they have changed our lives with everything
from solar cells and computers, including the soon to be quantum
computers, to wireless communications, satellites and digital imaging in
both medicine and photography.
They gave us climate friendly nuclear power, and
one day no doubt will provide the much safer nuclear fusion . . . but
they also gave us Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the long, terrible shadow that
descends over this fine production
And that is the elephant in the room, a merely
theoretical pachyderm of course, when Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg
met in Nazi occupied Copenhagen in 1941.
Bohr was a Danish professor whose work helped
understanding of the atom. He formulated the principal of
complementarity in quantum mechanics (and not a clue before you ask) and
was awarded the Nobel prize in 1922. Incidentally, his son, Aage Niels
Bohr, a nuclear physicist, also won a Nobel Prize in 1975.
German physicist Heisenberg had been mentored by
Bohr in 1924, replacing Bohr’s then assistant. He is best known for the
uncertainty principle (no clue again) and was to receive the Nobel prize
for his work on quantum mechanics in 1932.
Michael Frayn’s play is a fictional account of a
meeting that really did take place when Heisenberg, now heading the
German nuclear programme, visited his old teacher, the half Jewish Bohr
in Denmark. With a Jewish mother Jewish tradition saw Bohr as a
Jew, but, far more significant, so would the Nazis.
Bohr's wife Margrethe, played by Laura
Pearson, makes her point to her husband
The purpose of the visit is unclear, even the
protagonists and Bohr’s wife could not agree with each other upon what
was said or what was covered or even where it took place. Did they go
for a walk for instance, and if so where? Did Heisenberg want to quiz
Bohr to see about the allies' work on nuclear fission, and how close
they were to a reactor . . . or an atomic bomb? Was he there to warn
Bohr how far the Nazis had progressed or was he questioning the moral
dilemma and terrible responsibility the pair, and indeed scientists,
faced with the spectre of the atom, the tiny building block of creation
that had become their life’s work, becoming a malevolent weapon of
unimaginable destruction.
Or then again, could it have been much less
complex, and merely as Bohr’s wife had suggested, just an old student
coming round to show off how well he had done to his old teacher.
Frayn, with no clear path to travel, uses almost
a Groundhog Day technique of repeating the meeting over and
over with different records, different outcomes, with the trio, now
talking from the grave, changing their recollection each time.
So, we see two of the leading physicists of their
generation clashing over atomic theory, the niceties of particle physics
and behaviour of atoms, electrons, neutrons, photons . . .. even
Schrödinger's dead or alive cat makes an appearance. They remember
skiing trips, table tennis, games of poker, family tragedy and all the
people they met and argued with in the international, exclusive club of
theoretical physicists.
Their focus and single mindedness perhaps best
summed up when they argued about Heisenberg‘s work on a nuclear reactor,
not the fact the Germans were anywhere near developing one, but that
Heisenberg had got the physics wrong and his design was doomed and
uncontrollable.
Then there was the question of nuclear weapons.
While Heisenberg claimed he had done his best to dissuade the Germans
from progressing with the idea, Bohr had helped the Manhattan Project
which made the atomic bomb a reality, searing the names of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki into the universal conscience along with the promise of
Armageddon it had raised.
The Jewish scientist's contribution came after he
and his wife and brother had been smuggled across to neutral Sweden in
1943, a day later the Danish resistance managed to evacuate almost all
of Denmark’s 8,000 Jews to Sweden a day before they were due to be
rounded up by the SS and Gestapo thanks to a tip off and help from Georg
Duckwitz, an attaché in the German embassy in Copenhagen.
That much is known. Bohr, after escaping the
Nazis, made regular visits to Los Alamos where Robert Oppenheimer
credited him with helping solve the problem of modulated neutron
initiators. (again, no idea),
Was Margrethe right in her view Heisenberg was just showing
off?
Heisenberg worked on atomic energy but it is
widely accepted he never worked on an atomic bomb. After the war he
returned to research in Germany and was a driving force in the creation
of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in 1953.
This is a play which depends entirely upon the
actors. There is no action, no props, no situations arrising, not even a
regular plot or a linear progression. We visit and revisit the 1920s,
the 30s, 1945 and the years that followed, all the time passing through
that Copenhagen meeting in Bohr’s September . . . or was it Heisenberg’s
October . . . at least they all agreed it was 1941.
Bohr is played by Tom Rees who gives us a driven
scientist, tormented by a family tragedy, and whose emotions revolve
around his views of the structure and behaviour of atoms and particles,
things that could only be seen in his mind. He would argue,
enthusiastically, even angrilly, with anyone about points of theory. He
was Danish and loved his country but you did wonder if he loved his
beloved atoms and their theoretical universe more.
He was balanced by the far more outgoing Werner
Heisenberg, brought to life by Stuart Wishart who gives us a scientist
equally driven, equally committed, but who can see beyond the theory to
the consequences, who can see atomic theory not as its own world but as
part of the world we live in. He was a talented pianist and both
recognised and took part in a society outside science.
He is in the difficult position of being German
and like Bohr, proud of his heritage and loving his country, but then
there was the rise of the Nazis. Heisenberg was never a party member
and, in his scientific, analytical way, you feel he protected his
beloved atoms from the excesses of Hitler’s regime, but he knew he was
being watched, living on the edge, and all the time he was talking to a
man he admired and looked up to, all of which gave him a less than he
would have wanted need for reticence.
Then there was Laura Pearson’s lovely performance
as Bohr’s wife Margrethe. We are not sure if she liked Heisenberg who
became almost a second son to her husband in the early days. She
certainly seems to mistrust his appearance in 1941 in all its
incarnations in Frayn’s play, yet despite that she acts as referee much
of the time until she explodes into her claim that the student has come
to show off his role as a major scientific player in the higher echelons
of Denmark’s conquerors, overtaking the achievements of his former
teacher.
But after all that, we are brought back to that
dark and terrible realisation that the tiny atom that has created the
universe also has the power to destroy it.
As play’s go this probably struggles to make any
case for a claim of entertainment - intriguing, fascinating, thoughtful
is more its territory. It is heavy duty drama, full of scientific
theory, providing a host of alternatives to a single event, almost
creating its own uncertainty principle. In lesser hands this could be
dramatic Mogadon but this trio make it into a set of compelling
possibilities. We never know what really happened but we see the
potential scenarios and can decide what is most likely on our limited
information, based only on how well we think we have got to know the
three characters, and which one we believe most, all in the intimate
surroundings of the studio.
Director Tori Wishart, Stuart’s wife in case you
were wondering, has known the play for more than 20 years, her mother
played Margrethe the first time The Nonentities performed it so she has
grown up with it, and brings an understanding of what is required to
bring to life a difficult and well written and structured script. She
cleverly introduces movement into what otherwise would be a static
situation of three people in a sitting room. It provides us with
interest and emphasis on a set that consists of just three chairs with
nowhere to hide and nothing to distract for the trio on stage. It is
just us, them and the script.
The result is a celebration of acting and theatre
with a performance and a script that makes you listen, wonder, analyse
and think. To 02-11-24.
Roger Clarke
28-10-24
The Nonentities
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