Electrons and Einstein in Intime

First "proof," now "Copenhagen": Theatre Intime's current season seems to be making a concerted effort to keep the quantitatively minded spectator happy. Those who revel in the intricacies of complementarity and the uncertainty principle will naturally delight in this direct, assertive take on Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning historical drama, directed by Cara Tucker '12. But strong performances by Brad Wilson '13 and Josh Zeitlin '11 make this production emotionally compelling even for the non-physicist.

Near the height of World War II, Niels Bohr (Zeitlin) and Werner Heisenberg (Wilson), old friends and former scientific collaborators, find themselves on opposite sides. Bohr, a half-Jewish physicist living in Denmark with his wife Margrethe (Jenn Onofrio GS), clings to a tenuous existence in Copenhagen; Heisenberg, who is German, rejects offers to flee his homeland and has ambivalently taken control of Adolf Hitler's atomic weapons research program. Despite being under intense scrutiny from the SS, Heisenberg famously paid his old mentor a visit in Copenhagen in late 1941, but what they said to each other remains shrouded in mystery. "Copenhagen" is Frayn's sprawling, imaginative attempt to fill in the gaps.

The compressed spectrum of ages in the cast of any college production often makes it difficult to portray differences in age or status convincingly, but "Copenhagen" does not suffer from this problem. Wilson's generally impressive performance is especially effective at capturing Heisenberg's complicated relationship with his former adviser. Wilson, at times painfully awkward in his manner and slightly hunched forward, genuinely looks younger and less secure than the booming, patriarchal Zeitlin. The play's numerous shifts in time demand that Heisenberg and Bohr oscillate between moments of friendship and the realities of the present, where concerns over personal safety and debates about the ethics of nuclear weapons research dominate. Wilson and Zeitlin accomplish these changes impressively.

In fact, the performances in "Copenhagen" are uniformly impressive. All three actors show clear command over a script loaded with jargon and famous (and not-so-famous) European names - a few slips by Onofrio notwithstanding. Wilson and Zeitlin handle their frequent technical discourses well, showing enough animation to keep the audience interested and convey genuine excitement about physics. Most importantly, both embrace the emotional complexities of their deeply ambivalent roles without ever slipping into melodrama. They also handle Frayn's recurring metaphors for physics and moral ambiguity - from skiing to poker to Niels Bohr as the Pope - engagingly. "If I'm the Pope, then he's God," Zeitlin says dryly, explaining why he deferred to Albert Einstein on a particular calculation and prompting hearty laughter from the audience.

The excellent direction by Cara Tucker '12 improves the already dynamic performances. Under her direction, every inch of the stage gets used in a surprisingly effective physical take on the play - in one highlight, Bohr plays an electron and Heisenberg a photon in a hilarious enactment of the latter's eponymous uncertainty principle. The set (designed by Josh Budofsky '11, Ruthie Nachmany '12 and Ben Schaffer '11) consists of a circular ivory table with three stainless-steel chairs - a nucleus and electron cloud, perhaps - girded by a large, all-white horseshoe. The horseshoe fits perfectly with the physicality of the performance, and having Wilson and Zeitlin pace obsessively around its perimeter proves to be a fantastic way to stage the pivotal outdoor stroll of Heisenberg and Bohr.

In a recent interview with The Daily Princetonian, Tucker said that she initially wanted to direct Neil Labute's "Fat Pig" but ultimately settled on "Copenhagen" as an alternative more appropriate for Theatre Intime. I can't think of two plays that are less similar, but Tucker has definitely crafted and articulated a convincing take on her second choice. This production of "Copenhagen" isn't quite dazzling, and there are moments in the 150-minute runtime that drag. Still, from top to bottom it is solidly constructed and definitely stands among the best student productions outside of the Program in Theatre that I've seen this year.

4 Paws

Pros: Good design and staging; strong acting in the lead roles.