I was struck by how moving this production of BREAKING THE CODE— Hugh Whitemore’s 1986 play now onstage at Central Square Theater– still is! In the hands of an excellent cast, elegantly directed by Scott Edmiston, beautifully lit and simply staged with an updated epilogue by Neil Bartlett, the play remains an acutely relevant real life drama of a man ahead of his time who met the moment– and with whom time is still catching up.
WBZ-TV recently put the show IN THE SPOTLIGHT — WATCH HERE!
The man was British mathematical genius Alan Turing who helped win WWII by breaking the Nazi’s Enigma Code. But this heroic deed did not prevent him from being prosecuted for breaking another code: committing “gross indecency” in an era when homosexuality was a crime in Great Britain.Turing agreed to chemical castration rather than prison, and died of cyanide poisoning at the age of 41–which may have been a suicide. Posthumously pardoned by Queen Elizabeth in 2017, Turing is now considered the father of theoretical computer science. He was among the first to conceive of a brain outside the body in the form of the modern day computer, and the initial questions he asks in the play about the nature of intelligence are central to today’s conversations and questions around AI.
In other hands, this material might have been a dry slog through the wild and wacky world of algorithms. But Whitemore’s play grafts the science to the man, and taps into the ironies and tragedy of Turing’s life, the enigma of identity, and the wonder of what makes us human. The play questions to what extent human intelligence can be captured and codified. What makes a human mind tick and is it translatable?
As Alan Turing, Eddie Shields delivers a fascinating, detailed performance, potent and poignant. He conveys Turing’s expansive curiosity, his thrill at exploring the frontiers of human thinking, all as an eccentric loner who grew up stuttering and whose intellectual brilliance was not enough to shake loose much warmth from an oblivious, dismissive mother. Paula Plum as Sara Turing invests this potentially off-putting parent with enough humor and grace in the play’s climactic moments to win us over.
Dom Carter as detective Mick Ross walks a fine line as he rather reluctantly but dutifully reports Turing’s blunt admission of his homosexuality in disclosing a break-in at his apartment. Josephine Moshiri Elwood handles her character’s heartbreak with touching restraint as colleague Pat Green who falls in love with Turing but must accept the limits of his regard for her. David Bryan Jackson as Turing’s mentor “Dilly,” is slyly avuncular, and Matthew Beagan in multiple roles but principally as emotional/ romantic partners Christopher/Nikos–is convincing and effective.
DO SEE BREAKING THE CODE based on Andrew Hodges book, now a Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production which has JUST been extended to MAY 3rd at Central Square Theater!
