Tony Award-winning ‘Copenhagen’ completes Syracuse Stage’s 30th anniversary season

Tuesday, June 18, 2002, By News Staff

Tony Award-winning ‘Copenhagen’ completes Syracuse Stage’s 30th anniversary season June 18, 2002

Syracuse Stage will present “Copenhagen,” Michael Frayn’s complex tale of science and friendship, as the sixth show in its 2002-03 season. “We are delighted that we have firm rights and are finally able to announce this play,” states artistic director Robert Moss. “‘Copenhagen’ is a fascinating play that I know Syracuse audiences will enjoy.”

“Copenhagen” will run from April 2-30, 2003, and will be directed by Michael Donald Edwards, who directed “The Smell of the Kill” and “The Sisters Rosensweig” at Syracuse Stage. Edwards recently directed “A Winter’s Tale” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and is known throughout the United States, Australia and Europe for his direction of both opera and theatre.

“Copenhagen” is constructed around an actual 1941 meeting between Danish physicist Niels Bohr and German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Both Nobel laureates, the men were known to be working for their respective countries on the process of nuclear fission and its application as a weapon of mass destruction. Frayn’s drama addresses the nature of this meeting and contemplates the “what ifs” of history: What did they talk about? What if Bohr had helped Heisenberg? What if Heisenberg had created the nuclear bomb for Hitler – or did he deliberately refrain? Frayn manages, through deft dialogue and passionate characters, to engage the audience emotionally.

“Copenhagen” won the Tony Award in 2000 for best drama, best actress and best direction. In that same year it garnered best play honors from the Drama League, the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle Award.

“Michael Frayn’s tremendous new play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session,” wrote John Peter in the London Sunday Times. “Frayn searches remorselessly for answers while knowing, deep down, that in the end there aren’t any. This takes the greatest artistic courage.”

Moss has been intrigued by this play since he first saw it. “Although much of the talk is about atomic physics, it is first and foremost a human event that is being dissected and brought to life. I was riveted in the New York production by the passion of the characters and the ideas being chased,” he notes.

Subscriptions to Syracuse Stage’s 30th season are on sale now. Flexible 6-Packs are available for sale now and throughout the year. Single tickets to “Copenhagen” go on sale Oct. 1 at the box office (315/443-3275) and online at tickets.com. For further information and up to the minute news on Syracuse Stage visit the Web site at syracusestage.org.