Copenhagen Extends Run with New Cast

The National Theatre production of Michael Frayn's award-winning drama, Copenhagen, has extended its run at the West End's Duchess Theatre to 5 February 2000. The play had been booking to 7 August 1999. The current, original cast will be replaced at the beginning of the new booking period.

Copenhagen, directed by Michael Blakemore, received its world premiere in May 1998 at the National's Cottesloe theatre, where it played for eight months before transferring to the Duchess on 8 February 1999 (previews from 5 February). The play received both the 1998 Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards for Best New Play.

The play tackles the mysterious 1941meeting in Copenhagen between the German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr. They were old friends and their work together had opened the way into the atom, but now they were on opposite sides of a world war and the meeting would end in disaster.

David Burke (Niels Bohr), Sara Kestelman (Margrethe Bohr) and Matthew Marsh (Werner Heisenberg) have been in the show since its debut at the National. They will be replaced on 9 August by David Baron, Corinna Marlowe and William Brand.

Michael Frayn's stage plays include Alphabetical Order, Make and Break and Noises Off, all of which received Evening Standard Awards for Best Comedy of the Year and Benefactors which received the Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year. His translated work includes The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya. He has also published eight novels, a volume of philosophy and two screenplays.

Michael Blakemore, a former associate director at the National, has had a long association with Frayn, directing many of his award-winning plays. Prior to Copenhagen, his most recent work was the musical The Life by Cy Coleman in New York which received 12 Tony nominations, and the award-winning City of Angels in the West End.

Design for Copenhagen is by Peter J Davison with lighting by Mark Henderson.

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