''Hapgood'' is a play by

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and polit ...

, first produced in 1988. It is mainly about espionage, focusing on a British female spymaster (Hapgood) and her juggling of career and motherhood. The play also makes reference to

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

, including

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...

's "The answer is the question interrogated"; Heisenberg's

uncertainty principle In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physic ...

; and the topological problem of the

Seven Bridges of Königsberg The Seven Bridges of Königsberg is a historically notable problem in mathematics. Its negative resolution by Leonhard Euler in 1736 laid the foundations of graph theory and prefigured the idea of topology. The city of Königsberg in Prussia (n ...

. It is regarded as one of Stoppard’s weakest works.

Productions

In the original production in 1988, directed by Peter Wood,

Felicity Kendal Felicity Ann Kendal (born 25 September 1946) is an English actress, working principally in television and theatre. She has appeared in numerous stage and screen roles over a more than 70-year career, but the role that brought attention to her ...

played Hapgood,

Nigel Hawthorne Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne (5 April 1929 – 26 December 2001) was an English actor. He is most known for his stage acting and his portrayal of Sir Humphrey Appleby, the permanent secretary in the 1980s sitcom '' Yes Minister'' and the Cabi ...

played her friend and superior Blair and

Roger Rees Roger Rees (5 May 1944 – 10 July 2015) was a Welsh actor and director, widely known for his stage work. He won an Olivier Award and a Tony Award for his performance as the lead in ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby''. He also re ...

was their agent, the Soviet scientist Kerner. The production was a critical failure, and it was revised significantly in 1994 for the first New York production. The play premiered in the US

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...

at the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on 11 November 1994 and closed on 26 March 1995. Directed by Jack O'Brien, the cast featured

Josef Sommer Maximilian Josef Sommer (born June 26, 1934) is a retired German-American stage, television, and film actor. Early life He was born in Greifswald, Germany, and raised in North Carolina, the son of Elisabeth and Clemens Sommer, a professor of Art ...

(Blair),

David Strathairn David Russell Strathairn (; born January 26, 1949) is an American actor. Known for his leading roles on stage and screen, he has often portrayed historical figures such as Edward R. Murrow, J. Robert Oppenheimer, William H. Seward, and John Do ...

(Kerner) and

Stockard Channing Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American actress. She is known for playing Betty Rizzo in the film '' Grease'' (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series '' The West Wing'' ...

(Hapgood). Jack O'Brien won the 1995 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Director.Canby, Vincent
"Sunday View. A Witty Thriller By Tom Stoppard Doubles the Fun"
''The New York Times'', 11 December 1994

References

1988 plays Plays by Tom Stoppard {{1980s-play-stub