To deflect the unexpected romantic attentions of a co-worker, Alan Turing hands her a pinecone and explains how its spirals follow the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. "It prompts the age-old question," he says, "'Is God a mathematician?'"
A problem with this age-old question is that it isn't really a question people ask as generally as Turing may think. People, by and large, are what get between him and his god. When he was a boy, he later says, "Numbers were my friends" because they played by the rules.
There is an even bigger problem with Turing's devotion to rules, because he ignored one of the most inviolable rules of his times. As Hugh Whitemore's play Breaking the Code shows, it was not so much that this pioneering scientist broke Britain's gross-indecency laws as that he didn't do much to cover up his liaisons with other men. It wasn't a political stand. Social propriety was a feature that eluded him.
Theatre Rhino's production of Breaking the Code, first staged in London in 1986, comes at a propitious time, as Turing's name is again in currency thanks to the movie The Imitation Game. Actually, when Turing should have been most lauded, for breaking German's U-Boat Enigma code, public acknowledgment was a closely guarded state secret and later worked against him after being convicted for gross indecency.
Whitemore's play does a sturdy job laying out the basics of Turing's life, from his school years smitten with another student, to his years working on breaking the German code, to his later academic years and sexual encounters, and to his post-conviction life when he agreed to undergo sexually nullifying estrogen treatments for a year rather than face prison. The play, which skips back and forth through time, is an earnest, well-made play that skims more than delves. It falters, frustratingly so, at the very end with an action that lines up with little that has come before it.
Theatre Rhino's Executive Director John Fisher is doing double duty as both the director and playing Turing. The production at the Eureka Theatre has a sturdiness befitting the play, with a simple set of quickly rearranged chairs and a table helping maintain a fluid progression through the numerous scenes in different locales and time periods. As Turing, Fisher is best when he avoids childish mannerisms that feel unlikely even for an eccentric of arrested development.
There are some particularly fine performances in featured roles, including Patrick Ross as a police detective who diligently if reluctantly unravels the true circumstances of a minor burglary that Turing has thoughtlessly reported. High marks, too, to Val Hendrickson as a comically addled wartime superior who turns serious when he, without moral judgment, warns Turing to show a little more discretion in his personal life. Kristen Peacock warms up the production as Turing's colleague with ill-aimed romantic intentions, and Justin Lucas and Heren Patel briskly enliven the play with two of the young men who at least temporarily switch off Turing's built-in abacus.
In his post-war career as an academic, Turing asks a class, "Wouldn't it be nice to figure out one day what a machine can feel?" The question, of course, should really be turned on Turing himself.
Breaking the Code will run through March 21 at the Eureka Theatre. Tickets are $10-$30. Call (800) 838-3006 or go to therhino.org.