CAMBRIDGE - When actor John Kuntz met Jochen H. Heisenberg, son of the famous physicist Kuntz plays in the American Repertory Theatre's production of "Copenhagen," the first thing Heisenberg mentioned was Kuntz's hair.
"I'd ridden my bike to Harvard where he was speaking, and my hair was sticking straight up, all spiky, which is how his father's looked," says Kuntz over lunch before rehearsal for the play, which starts previews tomorrow. "I took it as a good sign."
But Heisenberg's comment also connected with the way Kuntz approached his role. "Usually I don't think about a character's physical appearance first," Kuntz says, "I start with internal motivations and emotions and work outward. But for Heisenberg, I came at it from the opposite direction."
Working from the outside in is essential for "Copenhagen," in which the characters' motiva tions are deliberately kept murky. Michael Frayn's award-winning drama explores a meeting between the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and his onetime student, the German Werner Heisenberg, which took place at Bohr's home in Copenhagen in 1941. At the time, both the Allies and the Nazis were trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Bohr went on to work with the Manhattan Project, which created the bombs dropped on Japan, while Heisenberg worked for the Nazis.
Frayn's play imagines three different versions of the conversation that took place at that meeting, from the perspectives of Heisenberg, Bohr, and Bohr's wife, Margrethe. Issues of friendship, patriotism, and responsibility all come into play as the three characters bounce off one another like the particles inside an atom.
For Kuntz, who has branched out in recent years from earlier comic performances to take on meatier dramatic roles, making his ART debut with this production is both intimidating and inspiring.
"Some of the best theatrical experiences I've seen have happened on that ART stage," Kuntz says, mentioning "The Homecoming," "In the Jungle of Cities," and "Uncle Vanya."
At the same time, Kuntz has the advantage of having worked with longtime ART company members Karen MacDonald (Margrethe) and Will LeBow (Bohr) at other theaters, so he says he's comfortable with them already. He adds that the resources of a theater larger than any of the others he's worked at before means there's lots of research available to help ground him in the time period and help him get his head around such ideas as quantum mechanics, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and Bohr's theory of complementarity.
But Kuntz says that what he found most helpful was meeting Heisenberg's son, a professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire, and Peter Galison, professor in the History of Science department at Harvard University. "Galison especially was so animated and passionate about science, he made these abstract, complicated theories much more tangible," Kuntz says.
"Copenhagen" is a popular drama to produce, and Boston has already seen the national tour of the Broadway production and a recent production mounted by the Publick Theatre. The choice of the play seems out of character for the edgy, director-oriented ART, but "Copenhagen" director Scott Zigler, who is also director of the ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, says it makes sense for the ART.
"I know when Gideon [Lester, the ART acting artistic director] chose it, he had Karen and Will in mind," Zigler says at rehearsal. "We're in this interim period now, and while we wait for a new artistic director to set a vision, it's a great opportunity to focus on the strength of the people who are here in the ART community. I think it's a good thing when the theater comes back to a strong utilization of the acting company and resident directors."
Adding Kuntz to the existing duo was easy, he says: "He's simply one of the most versatile actors working in Boston now."
"Copenhagen" is at the ART's Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, tomorrow-Feb. 3. Tickets: $39-$79. 617-547-8300, amrep.org.
'Macao' mishap
Because of an actor's injury, tonight's performance of "Adrift in Macao" at the Lyric Stage Company has been canceled. Ticket holders may contact the box office at 617-585-5678 to exchange tickets for another performance.
New fellows
Playwrights Kirsten Greenidge, Jacqui Parker, Ken Urban, and Joyce Van Dyke have been named Huntington Playwriting Fellows in the third group of playwrights included in the program since it was launched in 2004. Greenidge is currently playwright in residence at Company One, which will present her play "Gibson Girl" later this spring. Parker is a playwright, Elliot Norton Award-winning actor, artistic director of Our Place Theater Project, and founder of the African American Theatre Festival in Boston. Urban's plays have been produced at theater companies in Los Angeles and New York, where he founded the theater company The Committee. Van Dyke is the award-winning author of "A Girl's War" and is currently a MacDowell Colony fellow. Playwriting fellows meet twice monthly in the first year and in the second year receive individual support focused on specific projects they are developing.
Notes
Marni Nixon, best known for singing the role of Eliza Doolittle for Audrey Hepburn in the film "My Fair Lady," will appear as Mrs. Higgins in the new touring production playing at the Opera House Feb. 5-17. Christopher Cazenove, who played Ben Carrington in the TV series "Dynasty," will star as Professor Henry Higgins, and Lisa O'Hare, who played the title role of "Mary Poppins" in London, will play Eliza. Tickets: $30-$91. 617-931-2787, BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com . . . . "Whistle Down the Wind," the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Jim Steinman ("Bat Out of Hell") musical based on a 1950s film about children who believe they've discovered Jesus, will play the Citi Wang Theatre Jan. 29-Feb. 3. Tickets: $25-$69. 800-447-7400, citicenter.org.
