Michael Frayn

"Copenhagen is a reimagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb. In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a strange trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr. They were old friends and close colleagues, and they had revolutionized atomic physics in the 1920s with their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. But now the world had changed, and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. The meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment; it ended in disaster." "Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have exercised historians ever since. In Michael Frayn's new play, an ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring dramatic sensation, Heisenberg meets Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, once again to look for the answers and to work out - just as they had worked out the internal functioning of the atom - how we can ever know why we do what we do." --Book Jacket.

Copenhagen

Headlong

Towards the End of the Morning

Constructions

a life

My father's fortune

The Tin Men

Two people move into an empty room and begin to construct a life together in this work by the author of Noises Off Copenhagen Benefactors and numerous other well known plays. Should the bed go here and the table go there? Or the bed there and the table here? Everything inside this small space is for them to decide. The responsibility is daunting - especially when they reflect that it has taken the whole history of the world to get them together in this particular place at this particular time and that the whole future of the world will be different if the table is here instead of there. But how can they decide anything when the other person keeps disagreeing and when the woman downstairs maddeningly dumps unwanted furniture on them that they do not have the heart to refuse?

A Play in Two Acts

Here

Skios

A Screenplay

Clockwise

"One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) Alphabetical Order: "A comic essay about two types of woman... a very intelligent comedy because of its classic simplicity, and unusual in the way that the two types of women do not become stereotypes" (Daily Telegraph); Donkeys' Years, a satire on the establishment and British Institutions "Gorgeous farce, all the funnier for emerging from credible aspirations and natural anxieties... the play is richer and cannier than we expect farces to be." (New Statesman); Clouds, is a satire on government sponsored trips and a portrait of sexual jealousy,"it is poignantly and unerringly funny" (Guardian); Make and Break is a satirical commentary on British corporate interests abroad "Full of pain, ruthless observation, and a sense of humour which is sardonic, lunatic and warm" (Sunday Times); Noises Off - the West End hit play about a company of actors stepping from a sex farce into their own nightmarish lives backstage "A very intelligent joke about the fragility of all forms of drama...a pulverisingly funny play." (Guardian) "All of these plays are attempts to show something of the world, not to change it or to promote any particular idea of it. That's not to say there are no ideas in them. In fact what they are all about in one way or another is the way in which we impose our ideas upon the world around us...it might be objected that one single theme is a somewhat sparse provision to sustain five separate and dissimilar plays. I can only say that it is a theme which has occupied philosophers for over two thousand years and one which is likely to occupy them for at least two thousand more..."(Michael Frayn)

Alphabetical Order; Donkeys' Years; Clouds; Make and Break; Noises Off

Frayn Plays: 1

A Landing on the Sun

Ever since an obscure Civil Servant called Stephen Summerchild fell to his death from a window in the Admiralty, rumours have circulated about a connection with some secret defence project. Now, as a television company reinvestigates the case, the Cabinet Office feels it may be prudent to make a reassessment of its own, in case of any sudden alarm at Number Ten.'Comedy creeps up on A Landing on the Sun like bindweed, transforming what starts out as a thriller into a small masterpiece of the absurd.' Financial Times

Landing on the Sun

In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a strange trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr. They were old friends and close colleagues, and they had revolutionised atomic physics in the 1920s with their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. But now the world had changed, and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. The meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment, and ended in disaster. Why the German physicist Heisenberg went to Copenhagen in 1942 and what he wanted to say to the Danish physicist Bohr are questions which have exercised historians of nuclear physics ever since. In Michael Frayn's new play Heisenberg meets Bohr and his wife Margrethe once again to look for the answers, and to work out, just as they had once worked out the internal functioning of the atom, how we can ever know why we do what we do. 'Michael Frayn's tremendous new play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session.' Sunday Times

Anton Chekhov

Comprising four one-act comic vaudevilles and four short stories adapted for the stage by Michael Frayn, The Sneeze introduces readers to a less familiar selection of work by one of the greatest precursors of modern drama. First published in 1989, this reissue includes The Sneeze; The Alien Corn; The Bear; The Evils of Tobacco; The Inspector-General; Swan Song; The Prospect, and Plots. Michael Frayn's translations of Chekhov's work marry the expertise of the translator with the innate understanding of a master dramatist and are widely regarded as the truest, most authentic renderings of Chekhov's work: 'His keen imaginative sympathy with the great Russian dramatist extends beyond translation . . . But translation is an art at which he excels.' Spectator

The Sneeze

"One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) One spring morning a quiet, shy man in his sixties sets out from Land's End to walk the length of his native land. He has never walked more than a dozen miles in his life before, his health is uncertain, his boots are new, and he is too diffident to talk to anyone he meets along the way. His slow, solitary progress up the spine of Britain is watched by an unseen audience - his family and friends at home. How far will he get before he is forced to give up? Is he being heroic or merely selfish? As the days of his absence go by the old alliances and quarrels inside the family shift and alter. What emerges is a story about the arbitrariness of human endeavour and about the tenacious complexity of human relationships; about one man's glimpse of the country he lives in; about courage and about love. First and Last was directed by Alan Dossor in a production for BBC television, with Joss Ackland as the walker.

First & Last

One of the funniest writers of his generation, Michael Frayn has been writing humorous newspaper columns since 1959, principally for the "Guardian" and "Observer", and originally came to prominence as the thrice weekly purveyor of these short, surreal, razor-sharp explorations of human foibles, sex, politics, manners, and the events of the day. This volume brings together 110 of his finest and funniest pieces from over the years, selected and introduced by Michael Frayn himself, and is an unmissable treat for the many fans of his unique comic voice, as well as a revelation for fans of the award-winning literary novels and plays of his later career.

Collected Columns

Why not programme computers to do all the hard work and dull jobs that human beings have to do? At the William Morris Institute of Automation they are doing just that so that mankind can get on with the really stimulating and demanding tasks of living today!

Balmoral

The Tony Award—winning play that soars at the intersection of science and art, Copenhagen is an explosive re-imagining of the mysterious wartime meeting between two Nobel laureates to discuss the atomic bomb. In 1941 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a clandestine trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart and friend Niels Bohr. Their work together on quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle had revolutionized atomic physics. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. Why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions that have vexed historians ever since. In Michael Frayn’s ambitious, fiercely intelligent, and daring new play Heisenberg and Bohr meet once again to discuss the intricacies of physics and to ponder the metaphysical—the very essence of human motivation.

'Michael Frayn's tremendous play is a piece of history, an intellectual thriller, a psychological investigation and a moral tribunal in full session' Sunday Times 'A profound and haunting meditation on the mysteries of human motivation' Independent 'Frayn has seized on a ral-life historical and scientific mystery. In 1941 the physicist Werner Heisenberg, who formulated the famous Uncertainty Principle about the movement of particles, and was at that time leading the Nazi's nuclear programme, went to visit his old boss and mentor, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. What was the purpose of his visit to Nazi-occupied Denmark? What did the two old friends say to each other, particularly bearing in mind that Bohr was both half-Jewish and a Danish patriot?... Frayn argues that just as it is impossible to be certain of the precise location of an electron, so it is impossible to be certain about the workings of the human mind... What is certain is that Frayn makes ideas zing and sing in this play' Daily Telegraph

Michael Frayn

Books

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