Breaking the Code: Show-stopping performance by the code breaker

Breaking the Code: Show-stopping performance by the code breaker

motherIMG_3092 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

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