Action in a Mind’s Eye

Two brilliant, Nobel Prize physicists, Denmark’s Niels Bohr and Germany’s Werner Heisenberg, met in Copenhagen in 1941. The two colleagues had been as close as father and son and their work opened the door for the creation of the atomic bomb. But at the time of the meeting, they were on opposite sides of World War II. Despite their political differences, Heisenberg made a covert trip to see Bohr at his house, but the meeting ended a shambles.

Bohr didn’t know before the meeting that Heisenberg was heading the Nazis’ atomic research program. According to Heisenberg, Bohr became upset over this and cut off the meeting. But until this day, scientists and historians don’t know what really happened. Michael Frayn’s Tony award-winning drama, “Copenhagen,” was inspired by the events surrounding that fateful meeting. After its success in London, on Broadway and in a national tour, “Copenhagen” has reached the small screen as the third offering in KCET/Hollywood’s drama series, “PBS Hollywood Presents.”

Co-produced by KCET/Hollywood and the BBC, the production, which premieres Sunday, stars Stephen Rea (“The Crying Game”) as Bohr, Francesca Annis (“Reckless”) as his wife, Margrethe, and Daniel Craig (“Road to Perdition”) as Heisenberg.

Howard Davies, who recently directed the Broadway revival of “Private Lives,” directed and adapted Frayn’s memory play.

Frayn knew little about science when he set out to write “Copenhagen.” “But I studied philosophy, and if you study philosophy you cannot not be interested in quantum mechanics because it has got so many philosophical implications.”

He first learned about Heisenberg’s trip to Copenhagen when he read the book “Heisenberg’s War.” “As soon as I read it, it seemed to crystallize a lot of things I had been thinking about over the years about human motivation, about why people do what we do and why we do what we do to ourselves.”

Because it deals with memory and how people remember events differently, “Copenhagen” unfolds in a “Rashomon” style. “There is a parallel between theoretical uncertainty as introduced by Heisenberg in quantum mechanics in the 1920s and uncertainty about human beings,” says Frayn.

With the uncertainty principal, says Frayn, “Heisenberg is saying however much we improve our techniques we can never know everything about the behavior of a physical object. There is a theoretical barrier. And for different reasons, there is a theoretical barrier to ever knowing everything about human motivation. That is what the play is about.”

Annis found Margrethe to be a welcomed challenge after her usual portrayals of free-spirited characters. Margrethe is the dutiful wife and mother, but she has a mind of her own and is not above speaking out about her distrust of Heisenberg, whom she never liked.

“As an actress I play pretty egotistical people who are just out there and demanding their own space,” she says. “For this part, I really had to go into myself and think. I really wanted to play the woman behind the man, who really revered this man and would do anything to clear the path for him to be creative and original. She wanted to make that as humanly possible for him.”

When Davies initially saw the play in London, he never thought it would translate into film because it was a memory play that was devoid of action but filled to the brim with dense dialogue.

“It wasn’t until some people approached me from the BBC and said would I be interested, and I went away and thought about it,” he says. When Davies was told that Frayn would do the adaptation, he agreed to direct the piece. But Frayn actually had no intention of adapting his work.

“He said, ‘I don’t have a clue how to do it,’ ” says Davies. “I walked away feeling I had gotten myself into deeper water than I thought initially.”

Davies says that Frayn is still being attacked in the London press for making Heisenberg too sympathetic.

“A lot of people are saying the guy was a Nazi, why is he being an apologist for him,” says Davies. “But I don’t think he is. He makes Heisenberg sympathetic because the man is a man. He is fallible. He is vain. He’s ambitious. But he’s not an evil man. He got himself on the wrong side and either he didn’t have the guts or the moral conviction to actually divorce himself from Nazism.”

“PBS Hollywood Presents ‘Copenhagen’ ” can be seen Sunday at 9 p.m. on KCET and KVCR. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for younger children).