From left, ‘Copenhagen’ actors Jeff Favorite as Werner Heisenberg, Angel Virgillio, center. as Margrethe Bohr, and Thomas Graves as Neils Bohr. Photo by Ashley Horner/LALT
BY MARLENE WILDEN
For the Los Alamos Reporter
History’s ghosts haunted the stage Saturday night at the Los Alamos Little Theatre, as the final performance of Copenhagen delivered a jolt of moral urgency rarely seen in community theater. Michael Frayn’s acclaimed three-person drama—already a cerebral confrontation of science, memory, and wartime conscience—took on new resonance in this top-secret, mountain town so steeped in nuclear legacy.
Directed by Emily Stark, the production centered on the 1941 meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg—played by Thomas Graves and Jeff Favorite, respectively—beneath the shadow of Nazi-occupied Denmark. Graves’ Bohr was measured and mournful, a man split by friendship and fear, while Favorite’s Heisenberg radiated earnest desperation, seeking moral justification for a path he may not fully understand. Angel Virgillio, as Margrethe Bohr, offered a steady and principled anchor, voicing unspoken judgments and sharpening the stakes with clear-eyed defiance.
But what elevated this production beyond historical drama was the urgency with which it connects the past to the present. In promotional material and public reflections, Graves, who also portrayed Bohr, warned the ideological tides the play revisits may once again be rising. He drew bold and chilling parallels between the rise of totalitarianism in 1930s Germany and what he sees as democratic backsliding in modern-day America.
The timing of this production, in a town built to develop the very bomb Bohr would later help unleash, couldn’t be more charged. Los Alamos, as Graves noted, is not just a backdrop, but itself, a character in this story, representing a collective consciousness of how scientific brilliance is tethered to ethical quandaries. Here, the debate over what scientists owe to society—and whether they can truly escape the consequences of their work—feels less like abstraction and more like inheritance.
This production didn’t flinch from those questions. Frayn’s script probes not only the physics of uncertainty, but the moral murkiness of survival under tyranny. Under Stark’s direction, the actors avoided melodrama, opting instead for simmering tension, like the silent drift of fallout before a blast.
The set was stark, the lighting clinical. The minimalist staging and lighting design effectively focused attention on the actors’ performances, enhancing the play’s introspective nature. There were no flourishes, only three minds circling a moment that might have changed history—and perhaps did. The silences between lines were as freighted as the speeches, emphasizing the impossibility of pinning down motive or memory when the stakes are apocalyptic.
What Copenhagen reminds us, especially in this urgent Los Alamos staging, is that history’s darkest chapters don’t always announce themselves with banners or boots. More often, they creep in quietly—through fear, obedience, convenience. As our world again lurches toward authoritarianism, the Little Theatre’s production asks: What is the scientist’s duty? The citizen’s? The neighbor’s?
More than a period piece, this Copenhagen was a flare fired skyward. The Los Alamos Little Theatre’s production provided a powerful platform for these reflections, marking a poignant end to a memorable and impactful production. And as the lights dimmed for the last time, the silence in the theater lingered—thick with thought, and perhaps, some resolve.
To read Thomas Graves’ original reflections on the production, visit the Los Alamos Reporter here.