Physics becomes art

The PlayMakers Repertory Company of Chapel Hill brings history to life in the critically acclaimed Copenhagen. The play by Michael Frayn tells the story of a conversation between two famed physicists whose discussions influenced the outcome of World War II.

In 1941, German Physicist Werner Heisenberg managed to go into the occupied city of Copenhagen to meet with his mentor Niels Bohr, one of the foremost names in atomic physics. The meeting of these two great minds has been turned into a one act, three-character play. “Copenhagen…uses the ideas of 20th century physics to explore the questions at the heart of the human experience,” director Drew Barr said.

Copenhagen received laudatory theater reviews and won a Tony Award in 2000. However, critical success was not enough to keep it on Broadway, where it attracted small audiences and had a short run. Luckily, regional theater companies around the country, such as PlayMakers, are keeping Copenhagen alive. “Were the life of a play solely dependent on a Broadway production and its auxiliary tours, Copenhagen would now be history,” artistic director David Hammond said.

Experts from PlayMakers Company, which was recognized by American Theater Magazine as one of America’s 50 Best Regional Theaters, decided to give the play several years to evolve from its Broadway production in order to be able to analyze it in a new way. The actors and directors feel that small theaters such as theirs are essential to the long-term success of any theatrical production. “It is the regional theater that keeps good plays alive, giving them the time they need to become works of lasting significance in the repertoire,” Hammond said.

Regional theaters have the ability to interpret less well-known plays from their own perspective, and add their own fresh take on the script. Local companies also have the opportunity to involve the community in a dense and complex play in more ways than just observing from the audience.

PlayMakers, in collaboration with several departments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, including the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is working to strengthen the link between the theater and its neighbors. Several seminar discussions about the play and about physics are being held and are open to the public.

Copenhagen is showing at The Center For Dramatic Arts in Chapel Hill through February 13. For more information, check out playmakersrep.org.