Overview
- Michael Longhurst’s new staging of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen is now running at Hampstead Theatre, marking a major London revival of the 1998 play.
- Richard Schiff plays Niels Bohr with Damien Molony as Werner Heisenberg and Alex Kingston as Margrethe, performing on Joanna Scotcher’s double-revolve set of water, glass and filament bulbs.
- The drama revisits a disputed 1941 meeting in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, as Bohr and Heisenberg re-examine motives and memory in a dreamlike afterlife setting.
- Critics praise the performances and the play’s human focus, while warning that long stretches of quantum theory and technical dialogue can be hard to follow, with one review noting line stumbles on opening night.
- The run is scheduled through May 2, and reviewers note this is the first major London staging since the play’s original National Theatre and West End success.