About the Play:

Copenhagen is one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th century.

Copenhagen is a full-length drama by Michael Frayn. In Nazi-occupied Copenhagen in 1941, a secret meeting took place between Nobel Prize winning physicist, Werner Heisenberg, a German, and his Danish mentor Niels Bohr, and the latter's wife, Margrethe. Both men have worked together to unlock secrets that could lead to the building of an atomic bomb and they debate the pros and cons of the bomb, with huge implications for both the Nazis and the Allies, and for our world today.

Copenhagen is a three-person play that provides a fictional account of an actual event during World War II. In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, then head of the German nuclear program, made a dangerous trip to Nazi-occupied Copenhagen to see his former mentor, the Danish theoretical physicist, Niels Bohr, who had deep ties to the Allies. They were old friends and close colleagues, and they had revolutionized atomic physics in the 1920s. But now the world had changed, and the two men found themselves on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg secretly journeyed to Copenhagen and what transpired between the two men has intrigued historians and scientists for decades. In the play Heisenberg meets Bohr under the watchful eye of Bohr's wife Margrethe and Michael Frayn speculates on the debates which might have taken place. As the two men engage in a passionate conversation about nuclear physics, the uncertainty principle, and their own ethical responsibilities, their dialogue raises profound questions about the nature of memory, friendship, and the devastating power of scientific discovery. For Heisenberg and Bohr, the question will always remain: what will come of the decisions we made?

Copenhagen premiered in 1998 at the Royal National Theatre in London and ran for more than 300 performances. It opened to rave reviews on Broadway in 2000 at the Royale Theatre and was awarded the Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards and, in the United Kingdom, the Olivier and Evening Standard awards. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across the US and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 1 female, 2 male

What people say:

"The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year. An electrifying work of art." — The New York Times

"Superb. Dynamic." — The New Yorker

"Gripping. A brilliant play." — The Guardian (London)

"The word 'tremendous' is often used but seldom deserved. In this case it is. Copenhagen is an intellectual and theatrical tour de force." — The Times (London)

"Michael Frayn's tremendous new play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session." — The Sunday Times (London)

About the Playwright:

Michael Frayn is an English writer who enjoys equally successful careers as dramatist, novelist and translator, having started out as an award-winning journalist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. His novel Headlong was shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize. Born in London in 1933 and educated at Cambridge, he is married to the biographer and critic Claire Tomalin; they live in London.