In:
Theatre Research International, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 30, No. 2 ( 2005-07), p. 139-149
Abstract:
Michael Frayn's play about quantum mechanics, memory and history, Copenhagen , has taken a lot of criticism for ‘misrepresenting’ its historical characters, primarily Werner Heisenberg. This essay analyses the dramaturgy of the play and argues for a postdramatic reading in which questions of representation are dissolved by formal strategies that ally themselves with the thematics of the work. The text is viewed as a hybrid, somewhere between the dramatic and the postdramatic, set, as it is, in a fictional afterlife where conventional human categories no longer function. The postdramatic theatre, in refusing to interpret text, becomes a viable mode for performance in that the indeterminacy of meaning on stage equates with the uncertainty principle that lies at the scientific and moral heart of Copenhagen .
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0307-8833
,
1474-0672
DOI:
10.1017/S0307883305001148
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
2005
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2045177-5
SSG:
9,3
