Written by Hugh Whitemore, “Breaking the Code” delves deep into the mind of Mathematician Alan Turing, and the war he faced not only with the Nazis during WWII, but his war against prejudice on the home front.

The play was based on the New York Times best seller, “The Enigma,” which also helped to spawn the 2014 box-office hit, “The Imitation Game.”
The play takes place during the WWII era, when Nazi Germany had the upper hand by hiding the locations of their U-boats through the use of a message encoding system called “the Enigma Machine.” Alan Turing is to lead the project to crack the code.
Turing’s solution: create a machine that counteracts the enigma and reveals the messages behind the German’s tactics.
After aiding the allies in winning the war with Germany, it is revealed through an active robbery investigation of his own home that Alan is a homosexual (a criminal offense of the time). Alan is then considered to be a criminal offender rather than a victim, and treated with distain by the country he helped to keep safe.
Lead actor Nigel Rogers put on an incredible performance, managing to fill some very big shoes with all of the odd and quirky idiosyncrasies of Alan Turing.
Supporting actress Tami Amici, who portrayed Patricia “Pat” Greene on stage, also put on a stunningly immersive performance.
There is a scene in which Turing is showing Pat the harmonious way that nature and math are unified, by showing the Fibonacci sequence using a pinecone. Tami is just so in awe over Alan Turing’s way of interpreting life during this scene.
From the detective’s office to Alan’s home, to Sara Turing’s home, to a park and more, director Jack Bathke had many different settings to cover throughout the play.
Despite that fact, he did a reasonably good job of making one visualize exactly where the characters were at all times. Equipped only with a couch, a desk and some bar stools, Bathke allows for seamless transitions from setting to setting, by making it seem as if time stands still for certain actors at pinnacle points.
The most symbolic element in the scenery, by far, was the mathematical equation painted across all three walls. Since mathematics was an underlying theme in the play, it was only fitting to use an equation. What I enjoyed the most about it was that the painted equation on the wall was both aesthetically pleasing, yet not distracting; even during scenes that took place outside.
For instance, while Turing is being questioned in the inspectors office, he is asked to recall a memory. Turing does so by getting up and acting out the memory on stage all while the inspector freezes still.
Turing then sits down and continues his narration of the memory, to which the inspector picks up where he left off – as if nothing unusual had taken place.
As far as the characters go, the one thing that I found to be interesting was the use of Christopher in the play. Christopher, Alan’s boyhood friend portrayed by Christopher St. Jude, only had dialogue in the very beginning of the performance. As it went on, Christopher remained in every scene merely as an observer; not to be noticed by any of the actors on stage. This comes to frutition when the audience learns more about Alan’s past with Christopher.
After seeing this play, one cannot help but feel somehow responsible for how Turing was treated. It gives the audience a sense of guilt.
One member of the audience departed after the show and asked, “is that really how we treat our heroes?”
The play was thoroughly enjoyable. “Breaking the Code” is premiering at Langhorne Players on Oct. 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17.