Breaking the Code: Show-stopping performance by the code breaker
Photo:Maria Vartanova. Susan Monagham and Shaun Toohey
Computer pioneer and code breaker Alan Turing was a man of extraordinary ability. He was also a social misfit, as a genius often is. In addition, his sexual orientation, combined with his outspokenness and naiveté in an era when homosexuality was illegal in his native Great Britain, led to his downfall.
Turing is credited with shortening the Second World War by being able to break Nazi Germany’s Enigma code. His punishment for “gross indecency”— the same charge that was brought against Oscar Wilde — was chemical castration, which ultimately, if indirectly, led to his death. (He was awarded an OBE for his wartime work and was posthumously pardoned by the Queen in 2013.)
Hugh Whitemore’s 1986 play Breaking the Code — like the 2014 movie The Imitation Game — is based on mathematician Andrew Hodges’ 1983 book, Alan Turing: The Enigma. The drama tells Turing’s story through 17 short scenes, moving between past and present, with cracking Enigma as the backdrop. In the foreground is the tortured presence of a brilliant eccentric, possibly with Asperger’s Syndrome, who broke the social code of his time.
In the Ottawa Little Theatre production of Breaking the Code, Shaun Toohey inhabits the persona of Alan Turing in a beautifully controlled and totally believable characterization. The role is massive — so is Toohey’s performance.
While some of the other performances, notably from Robin Carter, as Turing’s mentor, and from Stavros Sakiadis, as his strutting boyfriend, are well developed, the production is something of a disappointment. As directed by Klass van Weringh, it is repetitive in format, static in presentation and frequently drags through close to three hours. It also passes over some key moments in the script, as though they are insignificant.
Meanwhile, the show is well supported by the technical aspects of Robin Riddihough’s simple but evocative set and John Solman’s lighting.
Although this production gives only limited evidence that the play was an award winner some 30 years ago, it is worth the trip to see Toohey as Turing alone.
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 Sakiadis
John Smith……………………………………………….Andrew McCarville
Dillwyn Knox……………………………………………Robin Carter
Pat Green…………………………………………………Katie Buller