How's this for a pitch for a Broadway show?:
Anxious Producer: Okay folks, there's this Michael Frayn play that did really well in London...now, it's about a fateful meeting between a Danish physicist named Neils Bohr (Philip Bosco) and his impulsive but brilliant pupil Werner Heisenberg (Michael Cumpsty), all while Neils' wife Margrethe (Blair Brown) plays mediator and part-time narrator.
Unthrilled Backer: Why is she there at all if it is a meeting between two men?
Producer: Well, she provides backbone, you see...Okay, so the play has a lot of windy diatribes about fission, bomb-building ethics and where science and society merge...
Backer: I don't know, sounds a little brainy for a Broadway crowd...
Producer: I know, but we should take a chance.
Backer: Like Squonk?
Producer: Well, maybe not exactly like Squonk; besides, this has real stars in it. Phil and Blair will bring 'em in...Oh, and here's the best part, we'll set it in an auditorium-style sphere with audience members overlooking the actors, symposium-like...
Backer: Sounds interesting, but if they're really bored, the entire audience will be able to see them, which will deflect attention from the actors...
Producer: Hey, London audiences know what's good, look what happened with Janet McTeer in A Doll's House!
Backer: But that was Ibsen, and adapted for a modern sensibility; nobody had to listen to science lectures. Tell me, where's the heart in this piece?
Producer: Well, the two men have a father-son relationship, usually seen through the eyes of Margrethe...
Backer: Okay, okay, let's try it, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Producer: (a little nervous) No worries.
*
Okay, that was pretty wiseass, but I think it's fairly evident why this play simply does not work as a Broadway vehicle. I could go on further about the complicated backstory of theoretical physics that propels the lead characters, but do you really want to hear it? That is the entire problem with Michael Frayn's play, despite his tenacious research efforts. It feels like a staged reading of an article from Newsweek, directed by Bill Gates. The play has an icy, uninviting veneer from the very first words that are spoken, and the chilly, Kubrickian set does nothing to warm up the show whatsoever.
Director Michael Blakemore (currently also represented by the much more audience-friendly Kiss Me, Kate) is a versatile helmer, but I don't imagine anyone making this much more than a yawn-inducing head-scratcher. It seems mean spirited to attack a play for being studious and rooted in harsh fact, but what may make a splendid PBS documentary doesn't make for enlightening theater.
I generally try to keep audience reaction out of my reviews but can't resist this time. About an hour into Copenhagen, I started watching the patrons sitting in the proscenium onstage and noticed that whenever the actors faced them, the onlookers had expressions of rapt attention being paid. However, when the actors would turn away, they would go back to hands on their chins, valiantly trying to keep their heads upright. Whatever the case, this is not an illuminating experience. You can chalk it up to Attention Deficit Disorder (very common amongst playgoers, especially on Broadway), but when half the theater feels that way, you know that's trouble. Thankfully, the actors are well-cast and able. They seem committed to their portrayals, and give the evening its only juice. Copenhagen is so wrong-headed as an experiment that it holds a certain fascination: Whoever thought this would work in a theater that holds over 1,000 people? This intimate play was designed for, say, the Public Theater or maybe even Union Square Theater, but certainly not for the Great White Way, with Grandpa Tourist looking for a nice, unassuming night in Gotham. (A note to Grandpa Tourist: this won't be it.)
Early in the play and later, just before intermission, truer sentiments could not possibly be expressed with more clarity. A smiling Werner says to Niels, "My dear Bohr!". My dear bore, indeed.
