A Theatre of Uncertainties: Science and History in Michael Frayn's ‘Copenhagen’

Abstract

A recurring strand over the past few years in New Theatre Quarterly has been the relationship between the nature of theatricality and scientific conceptions rooted in quantum mechanics – notably Chaos Theory and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This approach is questioned by scientists, who doubt the possibility of bridging the scientific and the literary uses of the metaphorical language being deployed. Michael Frayn's recent play, Copenhagen, used the crucial wartime visit paid by Heisenberg to Niels Bohr, his fellow architect of the Uncertainty Principle, to explore the scientific concepts involved through the work's own form and content. Victoria Stewart here assesses the nature and the success of Frayn's techniques in relation to the wider uncertainties of live theatrical performance as well as to the relationship between the scientific and artistic use of metaphor. The outcome, she concludes, is ‘a dialogue between two fields of discourse – science and theatre – which reveals that both necessarily deal in ambiguity and uncertainty of outcome’. Victoria Stewart lectures in English and Drama at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

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