The incoming Class of 2003 will be probing some charged matter this summer in the form of Copenhagen, Michael Frayn’s theatrical examination of morality and the atomic bomb.
Set in Copenhagen in 1941, the play imagines the historical meeting between Danish physicist Niels Bohr and German physicist Werner Heisenberg, whose collaborative work had revolutionized atomic physics. The discussions between those once-close friends who had become political enemies “force us to consider some elemental questions,” said David Fox, the theater-arts lecturer who serves as director of the Penn Reading Project this year.
In choosing Copenhagen, which is scheduled to have a Broadway production next spring, the selection committee cited the “multidisciplinary nature of the text, the timeliness of the theme and the great possibilities for supporting events.” The incoming freshmen will discuss the play extensively in small groups after they arrive on campus in September.
