Michael Frayn - Copenhagen

Copenhagen was first previewed at the Cottesloe Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London, on May 21, 1998, and opened on May 28, 1998, with the following cast:

Directed by Michael Blakemore

Designed by Peter J. Davison

Lighting by Mark Henderson

Sound by Simon Baker

This production moved to the Duchess Theatre, London, where it was presented by Michael Codron and Lee Dean, and opened on February 5, 1999.

It previewed at the Royale Theatre, New York, on March 23, 2000, and opened on April 11, 2000, with the following cast:

Directed by Michael Blakemore

Designed by Peter J. Davison

Lighting by Mark Henderson and Michael Lincoln

Sound by Tony Meola

Margrethe But why?

Bohr Youre still thinking about it?

Margrethe Why did he come to Copenhagen?

Bohr Does it matter, my love, now were all three of us dead and gone?

Margrethe Some questions remain long after their owners have died. Lingering like ghosts. Looking for the answers they never found in life.

Bohr Some questions have no answers to find.

Margrethe Why did he come? What was he trying to tell you?

Bohr He did explain later.

Margrethe He explained over and over again. Each time he explained it became more obscure.

Bohr It was probably very simple, when you come right down to it: he wanted to have a talk.

Margrethe A talk? To the enemy? In the middle of a war?

Bohr Margrethe, my love, we were scarcely the enemy.

Margrethe It was 1941!

Bohr Heisenberg was one of our oldest friends.

Margrethe Heisenberg was German. We were Danes. We were under German occupation.

Bohr It put us in a difficult position, certainly.

Margrethe Ive never seen you as angry with anyone as you were with Heisenberg that night.

Bohr Not to disagree, but I believe I remained remarkably calm.

Margrethe I know when youre angry.

Bohr It was as difficult for him as it was for us.

Margrethe So why did he do it? Now no one can be hurt, now no one can be betrayed.

Bohr I doubt if he ever really knew himself.

Margrethe And he wasnt a friend. Not after that visit. That was the end of the famous friendship between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

Heisenberg Now were all dead and gone, yes, and there are only two things the world remembers about me. One is the uncertainty principle, and the other is my mysterious visit to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941. Everyone understands uncertainty. Or thinks he does. No one understands my trip to Copenhagen. Time and time again Ive explained it. To Bohr himself, and Margrethe. To interrogators and intelligence officers, to journalists and historians. The more Ive explained, the deeper the uncertainty has become. Well, I shall be happy to make one more attempt. Now were all dead and gone. Now no one can be hurt, now no one can be betrayed.

Margrethe I never entirely liked him, you know. Perhaps I can say that to you now.

Bohr Yes, you did. When he was first here in the twenties? Of course you did. On the beach at Tisvilde with us and the boys? He was one of the family.

Margrethe Something alien about him, even then.

Bohr So quick and eager.

Margrethe Too quick. Too eager.

Bohr Those bright watchful eyes.

Margrethe Too bright. Too watchful.

Bohr Well, he was a very great physicist. I never changed my mind about that.

Margrethe They were all good, all the people who came to Copenhagen to work with you. You had most of the great pioneers in atomic theory here at one time or another.

Bohr And the more I look back on it, the more I think Heisenberg was the greatest of them all.

Heisenberg So what was Bohr? He was the first of us all, the father of us all. Modern atomic physics began when Bohr realised that quantum theory applied to matter as well as to energy. 1913. Everything we did was based on that great insight of his.

Bohr When you think that he first came here to work with me in 1924

Heisenberg Id only just finished my doctorate, and Bohr was the most famous atomic physicist in the world.

Bohr and in just over a year hed invented quantum mechanics.

Margrethe It came out of his work with you.

Bohr Mostly out of what hed been doing with Max Born and Pascual Jordan at Gttingen. Another year or so and hed got uncertainty.

Margrethe And youd done complementarity.

Bohr We argued them both out together.

Heisenberg We did most of our best work together.

Bohr Heisenberg usually led the way.

Heisenberg Bohr made sense of it all.

Bohr We operated like a business.

Heisenberg Chairman and managing director.

Margrethe Father and son.

Heisenberg A family business.

Margrethe Even though we had sons of our own.

Bohr And we went on working together long after he ceased to be my assistant.

Heisenberg Long after Id left Copenhagen in 1927 and gone back to Germany. Long after I had a chair and a family of my own.

Margrethe Then the Nazis came to power .

Bohr And it got more and more difficult. When the war broke outimpossible. Until that day in 1941.