Copenhagen

Saw Copenhagen last night, at the Octagon Theatre at UWA.
What an excellent show!
Such a pleasure to be in the presence of actors who perform so 'easily'. The show is quite 'wordy' and there is a lot of talk of the physics of Bohr and Heisenberg, but even if you don't understand the physics the actors still get the message across. The play isn't about the physics anyway, more about ethics and what drives people, how people 'create' and why they 'create'. It was also an interesting investigation into the attitude of a German person during WWII. Little has been told (to me) of how the people of Germany felt about the war while it was on and it was interesting to hear dialogue between people during this time.
I can't recall the three actors names, is it Geoff Kelso? And two others, but they just had incredible grace and presence. Remarkable stuff.

Cheers
Nath

I as well saw Copenhagen last night and must agree that it was quite a good show. It kept me riveted to my set the whole performance.

I also feel that I must mention Geoff Kelso who played Heisenberg? ( I think, Don't have the program in front of me) for his outstanding self control. 3/4 of the way through the first act he turned, mover right to the edge of the stage and said words to the effect "Could you please be quite, The rest of the audience want to hear this." He then to to 2 steps backwards, paused, then continued on with the show.

I couldn't hear anything ( being on the other side of the stage) but he obversely could. He was polite but firm. Needless to say I did noice a few people from where he looked at didn't come back for the second act.

It was good to see the actor taking control of the situation, instead of having to deal with a disrespectful audience as well as a script full of dates, european names and theoretical physics and putting on a less that professional proformance.

I can only imagine what would of happened if a mobile had gone off.

Friends that I went with thought his aside was in the script!
I couldn't hear all the noise, but I assume it was that school group.

Nope. Mr Kelso's aside to noisy audeince members was definately not in the script, I saw this really lovely show on a different night and the aside didn't happen. An intersting thought though, what to do about noisy audience members, I think I'll move it up to Greenroom Gossip for dicussion.

But as for Copenhagen, I really loved it. The mirror scrim in the frame, making the stage and the action look like a photograph of the past, was an amazing device, allowing the actors to play almost in traverse. I must admit though, on the night that I went, I though the actos lost a little focus towars the end. Because the play is so wordy, the actors really need to hold the audience the whole way through. And exhausting and daunting task, but one they pulled off beautifully right up until the very end. A pity.

And Mr Kelso's two monologues about seeing in country in ruins, first in the last days of WWI while he was a boy, and then at the end of WWII trying to get back to see his family, I found incredibly visual and very moving, and I suppose true of any citizen of a defreated beloved nation. Particularly poignant today post-Afganistan, mid -Middle East and pre-Iraq.

It ends very soon but get to see this show if you can.

Went and saw this last night.

As just an ordinary theatregoer, I do not feel able to write a comprehensive review (where is the Review Master??) but congratulations to Zoe Atkinson for her stunning set, to Michael Frayn for such a brilliant script and to the three actors and their director who were outstanding.

It was so sad to see that the theatre was only about just over a third full.

Go and see it before it closes on Saturday and support this wonderful production.

Mike, you said "I could only imagine what would have happened if a mobile had gone off", well last night, friday the penultimate performance, one did!

As a performer i myself felt the urge to utterly destroy this ridiculous individual and trample on her ashes again for the ridiculous ring choice as well. It's one thing to have a phone ring but another to have "I Was A Little Spanish Flea" or whatever it was sound out in the midst of germany, the war and atomic bombs.

To the performers credit - Geoff Kelso, George Whaley and Rosemary Barr - they flew right over it. The ring was one of those teasers that pips up once and then comes back with a little jazz-like extended impro on the original melody. The first sound cam on one of Geoff's lines in the dialogue but was short and swift so they rolled right onto Rosemary's repartee`at which point the phone came on for its encore.

The promise of imminent Death that swelled in each actors eyes as they afforded themselve the smallest, smoothest but most casually deliberate glance at the culprit was simply stunning. Probably one of the best moments of the play as you could see the fury each actor was capable of mustering for effect from within themselve but which they fought throughout the perfomance with striking grace and control.

For me, this power was the highlight of the play. Whilst tackling a dense and intelligent piece of writing, which bases itself in the logic of question and answer, thesis and antithesis, cause and effect the actor held the drama. Every moment felt the magnitude of the stake, the issues at hand and the massive repercussion that the simplest of their thought, feelings, actions and interactions could result in. The actors must be commended for their control - i have not seen many examples of the empowered relaxation these actors allowed on stage. Their shift in emotion where totally unhindered . . . they managed to feel everything, the rage the hurt the fear the arrogance all of it, but fight it. THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO SAY: someone mentioned Geoff Kelso's monologues on his life in Germany during the war and they are perfect examples of what i was impressed by. The battle within the character/actor to relive the moments, to feel them, to embrace the emotion or fall victim wholey to the anguish CONTRASTED with the need for control, for calm, to get done what needs to be done despite their desires - the play was about intelligent people, with intelligent problems and the play was played in respect of this: every moment was i engaged by the characters intelligently, whilst each had an emotional anchor in the scene as any human does, the primary focus was the argument, all else come second. truely brave and engeging performance.

Thank you to all who helped put in on. i enjoyed it.


" Thou pox-marked clay-brained strumpet! "
Love that insult button!

Yes, I can't add much to these reviews of Copenhagen, except to say I thoroughly agree. Such a dense and complex story staged in such a clear and simple manner, I was quite rivetted.

But you really had to pay attention. I can now understand why the smallest distraction was looked upon as such a sin. (Actually, I can even understand a little why an audience member might not be able to concentrate...if you weren't up to the task of following, you could miss vital information and find it hard to catch up). An old gentleman next to us wasn't up to it and he nodded off; it was only a two second distraction before his wife cuffed him to stop his snore, but the damage was already done. In the instant of being distracted by him and then looking back to the stage, I lost part of a thread of one of Geoff Kelso's wonderful speeches, which annoyed me greatly. I don't condemn the poor old bloke, who did not return after interval, but I certainly would've been livid if a mobile phone or a distracting conversation had occurred that night.

So I stand by my opinion of Geoff's actions as reported in other threads, and would now add to my description, "considerate".


Congratulations, George, Geoff and Ros, for your wonderfully inspiring performances.



crgwllms

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I'm rather late adding my 2 cents worth (have been in a show which only ended Sat. night) but I'd like to add my congrats to all involved in Copenhagen. Wonderful intelligent theatre !! Give us more, lots more!

I went with a friend who'd seen it in London, and she said that this production was much better all round. Apparently the London version was very static and oddly flat because it was played for the ideas at the expense of the characters, so lacked the emotional grip of the Octagon production. Nor did the London version enjoy the wonderful 'mirror' set which made such tremendous use of the thrust stage.

All the performances were excellent, I thought, and beautifully balanced between the 3 characters, creating & sustaining a shifting 3-way tension throughout the complex development of the play. It's not only the subject matter that is concentrated and demanding - the play's structure circles around and around the central issues, revealing new and deeper layers at each turn. The actors seemed to have total mastery of this though it must be difficult to keep the focus and drive clear through the repetitions as the past is revisited over and over. I imagine it would be all too easy to get confused, even without mobile phones etc in the audience...
None of this occurred the night I went, fortunately. The theatre was also pretty full and I'd say from the way some of the patrons were (over)dressed they are not the sort who go to the theatre very often, but you could have heard a pin drop as the play gripped their attention. Which was wonderful for me as I have a hearing loss and had lost one of my hearing aids. I never had to struggle to hear, even when the actors had their back to me as inevitably occurs from time to time when working on a thrust stage. So special plaudits for the cast for excellent diction and projection, esp. Geoff.
All in all, then, a splendid production, one to remind us of the great talent here in the West. Reports of the death of good professional theatre in Perth are still premature, thank God, though it has been ailing and losing vital life-blood for some time.