Copenhagen (Critical Overview)

Critical Overview

Copenhagen has won praise from audiences and critics alike, as well as several prestigious awards. It also has gained the attention of academics. Jonothan Logan writes in American Scientist that, although he found the play to be "quick, clever and artfully plotted," he is concerned about Frayn's alteration of the historical facts and his rearrangement of "the moral landscape the real Bohr and Heisenberg inhabited." Logan contends that Frayn's reliance on Thomas Powers's book Heisenberg's War for the content of his play was faulty because the Powers book was flawed and thus "won little respect from historians."

Another scholar, Paul Lawrence Rose, writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, begins his article: "Scholars are never satisfied when they see their specialized subjects turn fodder for stage, screen, or novels." Rose is a specialist on Heisenberg and he praises Frayn for developing "through his often electric dialogue a synergy on stage that has made the play a success." Rose even goes so far as to state that there has not been another play that "has achieved the brilliance of Copenhagen in rendering the technical discussion of scientific ideas dramatically convincing and, at the same time, accessible to scientists and non-scientists alike." But Rose has problems with Frayn's depictions of the characters. In particular, he questions Frayn's depiction of Heisenberg: "Was Heisenberg really the character depicted so sympathetically on stage? Was his attitude toward Nazism really so ambivalent, or so justifiable, as Frayn variously suggests?"

Despite the controversy of historical fact versus Frayn's dramatic presentation, there is hardly anyone who has criticized the artistic value and presentation of the play. Washington Post reviewer Nelson Pressley concludes that Copenhagen is "as ingenious as advertised." Pressley even comments that, despite arguments against Frayn's "fairly sympathetic view of Heisenberg," the play is still a worthy creation:

Frayn entertains so many possibilities in this play, and is so direct about the stakes that it's hard to imagine Copenhagen being invalidated by anything short of a complete transcript of the meeting [between Bohr and Heisenberg].

Jules Becker, in the Worcester, Massachusetts Telegram and Gazette, suggests that if nothing else, Frayn's play should excite the audience, inspiring them to go back to the textbooks and dig into history a little deeper to come to their own conclusions about the real-life counterparts of the characters depicted in the play. Becker observes: "Copenhagen may not ultimately explain whether Heisenberg visited Bohr to help the Nazis or to stymie their effort. Yet it does make a cogent argument for understanding the scientists along with their science and the importance of a science-friendly public."

Seattle Times reviewer Misha Berson calls Copenhagen a "brilliant, demanding play." Jack Kroll in Newsweek writes: "Frayn creates riveting suspense and, without dumbing down the dialogue, makes the discussion of matters like quantum physics and matrix mathematics seem like revelations of character." And Washington Post writer Peter Marks points out: "Good writing has a way of relaxing the spirit in much the manner that a session in the hot tub releases the tension in one's neck and back, and Michael Frayn, author of the Tony-winning play, is in this regard a stress-relief wizard."

The questions that circle around the real-life Bohr-Heisenberg meeting may never be answered either in history or in drama, but Frayn's attempt in Copenhagen continues to inspire discussion. Whether it answers any questions, and indeed whether it is historically factual, is immaterial to many audience members and critics alike, including Julia M. Klein, who writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education: "All the letter writers, so intent on being right, are busy pounding a metaphorical mattress with a hammer. They haven't noticed that readers long ago started rolling their eyes."