[Michael Frayn] In later life I’ve begun to write plays about characters who really existed, and it’s taken a lot of research to find out about what they actually did in life. And when I first did it with Copenhagen, I found it very inhibiting for a start to know that however much research I did and however hard I worked I could not go back and hear the words those characters actually said. I could not meet them, I couldn’t see them in real life. And they had actually live, they had actually said words, and thought this and felt that, and I could never capture that. But after a bit, the same thing kicks in and even characters who had a real historical existence at some point, seem to come to life in one’s imagination, and I’m sure they’re not like their originals but they seem to take on a life of their own. In fact as I’ve said when Copenhagen was produced in New York I had a very salutary experience. At the end of the first night, tension running very high, I came face to face back stage with a very tall and imposing man who said, “I’m Jochen Heisenberg, Werner Heisenberg’s son”, and we’d spent the last two and a half hours looking at my attempt to represent his father, Werner Heisenberg, great German physicist, on the stage. And Jochen Heisenberg said “I have to tell you, your Heisenberg is nothing like my father. I never saw my father express emotion about anything accept music”.
Well, that was a chastening reminder of how difficult it is, of how improbable it is that your fictitious representation is going to represent a real character. But then he went on and said, I thought wonderfully, however in a play I see that you have to have characters who are rather more forthcoming than that.
[excerpt of Copenhagen play]
[Niels Bohr] It was the very beginning of Spring, the first time I came to Copenhagen in 1924, March, raw, blustery, northern weather. But every now and then the sun would come out and leave that first marvellous warmth of the year on your skin, that first breathe of returning life. You were twenty two, so I must have been…
[Werner Heisenberg] …thirty-eight
[Niels Bohr] …Almost the same age as you were when you came in 1941.
[Werner Heisenberg] So what do we do?
[Niels Bohr] Put on our boots and rucksacks…
[Werner Heisenberg] …Hit the track till the end of the line.
[Niels Bohr] Start walking
[Werner Heisenberg] Northwards to Eltham north [unclear]
[Niels Bohr] If you walk you talk…
[Werner Heisenberg] …Westward to Tzila [unclear]
[Niels Bohr] …And back by way of hell on earth.
[Werner Heisenberg] Walking, talking for a hundred miles…
[Niels Bohr] …Afterwards which we talked…
[Werner Heisenberg] …More or less, non stop…
[Niels Bohr] …For the next three years.
[Werner Heisenberg] We’d split a bottle of wine over dinner in your flat at the institute
[Niels Bohr] ...and I’d come up to your room…
[Werner Heisenberg] …that terrible little room in the servants quarters, in the attic…
[Niels Bohr] …And we’d talk on till the small hours.
Well, that was a chastening reminder of how difficult it is, of how improbable it is that your fictitious representation is going to represent a real character. But then he went on and said, I thought wonderfully, however in a play I see that you have to have characters who are rather more forthcoming than that.
[excerpt of Copenhagen play]
[Niels Bohr] It was the very beginning of Spring, the first time I came to Copenhagen in 1924, March, raw, blustery, northern weather. But every now and then the sun would come out and leave that first marvellous warmth of the year on your skin, that first breathe of returning life. You were twenty two, so I must have been…
[Werner Heisenberg] …thirty-eight
[Niels Bohr] …Almost the same age as you were when you came in 1941.
[Werner Heisenberg] So what do we do?
[Niels Bohr] Put on our boots and rucksacks…
[Werner Heisenberg] …Hit the track till the end of the line.
[Niels Bohr] Start walking
[Werner Heisenberg] Northwards to Eltham north [unclear]
[Niels Bohr] If you walk you talk…
[Werner Heisenberg] …Westward to Tzila [unclear]
[Niels Bohr] …And back by way of hell on earth.
[Werner Heisenberg] Walking, talking for a hundred miles…
[Niels Bohr] …Afterwards which we talked…
[Werner Heisenberg] …More or less, non stop…
[Niels Bohr] …For the next three years.
[Werner Heisenberg] We’d split a bottle of wine over dinner in your flat at the institute
[Niels Bohr] ...and I’d come up to your room…
[Werner Heisenberg] …that terrible little room in the servants quarters, in the attic…
[Niels Bohr] …And we’d talk on till the small hours.