Breaking the Code: A Personal Triumph for Actor Shaun Toohey.

Photo: Maria Vartanova. Katie Buller and Shaun Toohey.

Hugh Whitemore’s play, Breaking The Code, can seem something of a period piece these days — and not only because of its wartime setting. Yes, it tells a compelling real-life story — that of Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician who was instrumental in cracking Nazi Germany’s notorious Enigma Code only to have the full weight of the state destroy him a few years later because of his homosexuality. Its problem is that it was written in 1986 and that its original impact has been eclipsed by subsequent events.

The salvaging of Turing’s reputation was yet to come when the play had its triumphant launching in London’s West End. But Breaking The Code was crucial in making the public aware of this forgotten genius who was so vital in helping the Allies win the war and also of the personal tragedy that led to his death — possibly by suicide — in 1954. And because homosexuality had been decriminalized by this time, these new revelations about Turing’s tragic end roused the public conscience, thereby paving the way for his rehabilitation — an official public apology by British prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009, a posthumous pardon by the Queen in 2013, and a year later the perhaps inevitable act of benediction from Hollywood in the form of the movie, The Imitation Game.

There are some who think the film, despite its cavalier tampering with the truth, constitutes the final word on Turing, and that Whitemore’s 29-year-old drama has been left behind in the dust. Others of us, however, will beg to differ. At Ottawa Little Theatre this month, actor Shaun Toohey is delivering a sterling performance as Turing, bringing both insight and credibility to the elusive character of a back-room boffin who helped shorten the war through his pioneering work in computer science and code-breaking but who in another compartment of his life was a sad and lonely man in search of affection.

Toohey’s portrayal owes nothing to Benedict Cumberbatch, the Turing of the film — and thank heaven for that. An ever trendy Hollywood has seemingly awarded Cumberbatch the specialist job of airing neuroses on screen — but after spinning endless moody variations on this theme as Sherlock Holmes, Julian Assange and now Alan Turing, he’s in danger of reaching a creative dead end.

Meanwhile, at OLT, Toohey — despite being trapped in an inadequate production — is taking possession of this character with confidence. He avoids the potential pitfalls: there’s no polemic here, no attempt to turn Turing into a martyr, no attempt to diminish the quirks in his nature or his limitations when it comes to connecting meaningfully with others.

There’s a poignant, rumpled charm to this portrayal — one that still lingers wraith-like in the aftermath of his post-war prosecution for gross indecency, even flickering in his rueful coming-to-terms with the court-ordered chemical castration that has left him with breasts. Yet there’s no plea for pity. What Toohey does convey is Turing’s moral honesty — an almost child-like virtue that makes him putty within the hands of the police when he initially calls them because of a burglary at his home and, in so doing, triggers an investigation into his sexual life

Nevertheless, when it comes to communicating Turing’s burning intellect, Toohey wasn’t quite there opening night — but was this was really his fault? In the first act, there’s a moment when Turing’s Bletchling Park superior, Dillwyn Knox, asks Turing to explain his complicated theories in a few concise sentences. Turing responds with a brilliant lecture that goes on and on and on. At OLT, it becomes increasingly tedious — am amazing feat of memorization, of course, but there’s also this sense of Toohey’s Turing huffing and puffing to get to the end. It’s easy to accuse Whitemore of needless self-indulgence with this scene, but we’d be wrong. He originally wrote it as a high-wire acting opportunity for Derek Jacobi who created the role of Turing on the London stage; Jacobi, seizing his advantage, came through with a bravura display that brought down the house at every performance.

But Jacobi was also part of a beautifully executed production that helped him immeasurably in such moments. In Ottawa, under director Klass van Weringh’s tepid direction, Toohey faces an ongoing struggle with a listless unimaginative production so static that many scenes would work almost as well in the form of dramatic readings.

On opening night, Toohey fared much better post-intermission when we see Turing communicating his scientific enthusiasms to a school gathering. Here, Toohey came through with an intellectual fervour that was infectious. And indeed, one of the striking aspects of his Ottawa performance is his success in tapping into the same nuanced aspects of Turing’s character that preoccupied Jacobi three generations ago.

The production benefits from a spare but functional set design from Robin Riddihough, a design sensitive to the material’s constant shifts in time and place. And despite a frequently flaccid production, supporting performances achieve some moments of definition. This is especially true of Stavros Sakiadis as the amiable but pragmatic sexual pick-up who proves to have a disastrous effect on Turing’s life — and the production does acquire a pronounced dramatic edge during the scene when Turing accuses this man he has allowed into his home of stealing his money. Douglas Cuff is solid as a cop who suffers a few stirrings of conscience when he is forced to charge Turing with sexual misconduct, and Katie Buller, as a sympathetic Bletchling colleague, is excellent in a scene where she tries to make an emotional connection with Turing.

Robin Carter offers an engaging study in antiquity as Turing’s tottering old boss, but the production denies him the opportunity in at least one key scene to achieve more definition for his character. The same might be said of Susan Monaghan as Turing’s mother and Tanner Flinn as the boyhood friend that Alan loves. The portrayals seem underdeveloped.

Still there there remains reason enough to see what OLT has done with Breaking The Code. The subject matter retains its fascination. And it offers audiences an outstanding lead performance.

Breaking the Code continues at Ottawa Little Theatre to May 23, 2015.

By Hugh Whitemore

Director: Klass van Weringh

Set: Robin Riddihough

Lighting: John Solman

Sound: Robert Krukowski

Costume: Peggy Laverty

Cast:

Mick Ross……………………………………………….Douglas Cuff

Alan Turing……………………………………………..Shaun Toohey

Christopher Morcom/Nikos……………………………..Tanner Flinn

Sara Turing………………………………………………Susan Monaghan

Ron Miller……………………………………………….Stavros Sakliadis

John Smith……………………………………………….Andrew McCarville

Dillwyn Knox……………………………………………Robin Carter

Pat Green…………………………………………………Katie Buller