Breaking the Code

“Well, there you go—that’s the way of the world,” laments half-­bemused/half-irritated British mathematician Alan Turing partway through Breaking the Code. “One never seems to hear of the really great mathematicians.” Turing—a man who combined brilliance, gayness, and social awkwardness in a manner that would lead to his undoing—was in the midst of a job interview for the British government as a breaker of Nazi military codes. Ironically, the world would hear more about Turing than he ever wanted.

Breaking the Code, written in 1986 by Hugh Whitemore, concerns a mathematician who was persecuted because of his homosexuality (Turing was a war hero, but committed suicide two years after being sentenced to chemical castration), but do not be fooled. It is neither a “science play” nor a “gay play”—both have had their fads in the past two decades and both have been dashed on the rocks of their own clichés. Breaking the Code is a marvelously intelligent and well-made script, directed by the fiercely talented Sheila Daniels (when she’s on, she’s on), and breathed into life by an impressively capable cast. If any point in the triangle of a production—writer, director, cast—is weak, the whole thing falls apart. And most productions (let’s be honest) have at least one weakness in their triangles. But Breaking the Code is the seldom-seen production that wants for nothing. (Designers, of course, are important, and Greg Carter’s stark set of black furniture and one bright red apple is very good. But the trinity is the trinity, and this trinity works.)

A sample bit of dialogue between the eccentric Turing (Bradford Farwell—you probably don’t know his name yet, but you will want to see more of him) and his equally eccentric British boss Dillwyn Knox (Charles Leggett) as Turing is just beginning to be outed for having a dalliance with a young engineer on the team and Knox is cautioning him to be more “discreet”:

Turing: Am I in for a lesson in morals?

Knox: In common sense. I mean, I don’t give a family damn whether you choose to go to bed with choirboys or cocker spaniels. But it would be wiser to keep your private life to yourself.

Turing [furiously]: Is this an official reprimand?

Knox: Friendly advice, nothing more. I mean, first things first. What we are doing here, most especially what you’re doing here, has a direct and crucial bearing on the progress of the war. A pretty young engineer comes in a rather poor second to that, surely.

Turing: I thought you said rules only mattered in cricket.

Knox: It’s such nonsense, this contemporary obsession with sexual fulfillment! Passion is dreadfully overrated if you ask me. One is happiest when sex is a dimly remembered pleasure, like climbing apple trees or building sand castles.

And thus begins the downfall of a man who only cares about the life of the mind, but who harbors one too many secrets for the men who only care about the life of the world.

Daniels has pulled a magnificent performance out of Farwell as the stuttering and awkward Turing. The play is long—three hours—but the time you spend with him and the people who surround him (including Amy Fleetwood as his uptight mother, Alycia Delmore of Humpday as one of his understanding peers, and Tim Gouran as the louche little bastard who ruins Turing’s life) will be the richest three hours you’ll hope to spend anywhere this month.

Enjoy Breaking the Code. “Well-made plays” this well-made are as rare as hen’s teeth.

This article has been updated since its original publication.