actaully, i've never read the book, but i saw the play and it's HILARIOUS! i bet the book is too! see the play or read the book, either way, it's funny!

GREAT PLAY-says so much about life and love.
Character driven.
Sad, but it's Checkov
Well worth the read!

The book is an irritating dichotomy. A tightly woven,well-structured plot compliments an economical stock of carefullycrafted and intriguing if ultimately plebian characters. At the same time the book preaches, is tedious and is not terribly interesting. Frayn's stream of consciousness works well, though it falls somewhat short of Faulkner. ...However, interesting questions remained unanswered, such as the teasing fascination of Jessel's family relationships and his resolution of an old love affair. It is not in the least bit funny. END

With its enticing blend of sex, death, Establishment politics and academic philosophy (in this case the theory of happiness), the setup for this intriguing novel sounds like something by Ian McEwan. But Frayn brings to it his trademark sense of humor, so it never quite gets into the same territory. The comic aspects of an unlikely love affair between a devious public servant and the Oxford academic who is also his boss are fully exploited, providing a nice counterpoint to the more intellectually engaging philosophical material. In that sense, this novel makes a nice companion piece to Frayn's two most recent efforts - "Headlong" and "Spies" - both of which similarly deploy comic plots as devices for discussing more serious concerns. In the right hands, this kind of thing can really work. Frayn consistently manages to pull it off because he makes clever narrative choices. Here, he uses the first-person narration of an investigator, the transcripts of meetings, and audio tapes of the lovers to tell a story which unfolds in two timeframes. He also sets up an intriguing mystery - Who killed Stephen Summerchild? - to pull you through. Highly original and engaging, this should appeal to readers who prefer literary fiction but also enjoy the intrigue and pacing of crime/mystery novels. It's a challenging fusion of the two.

This book is a strange, finely crafted, sometimes very funny, deliberation about beaurocracy, philosophy, love and insanity.

Frayn paints a hilarious and riotous dreamscape featuring a loveable hero who gets to realise his every potential and more, from being a witty dinner-party conversationalist to finding out that he can fly...

Delightful and whimsical, I've yet to come across anyone who has not enjoyed this book.

Sweet Dreams has long been one of my favorite books, one of the few I've ever cared to reread. The opening section, in which the protagonist seamlessly glides into what we come to understand is heaven, and then discovers its many delights (being able to fly if you want to...or not, 5-star restaurants) is without equal in anything else I've read: elegant, light, perfectly executed, completely delightful. Then, as the story develops, the protagonist goes through apprenticeship, love, early success and fame, midlife crisis, and resolution. It's always done with a light and comic touch, yet deals with profound questions. How Frayn was able to conceive of the story and carry it off is remarkable. It's a crime that this book is not in print, particularly when writers like Anthony Burgess and Margaret Drabble have praised it as one of the best British novels of the late 20th century. Hunt for a used copy--your search will be well repaid!

This is a story of hero(ine) worship, a disastrous relationship, and the destructive power of envy, told in the form of letters from an English academic who becomes romantically involved with the famous author who is the subject of his studies. As in "Headlong", Frayn gives us a flawed protagonist we both like and despise. We can see the value of what he wants and wish him well in his quest, but then can only look on in agonized impotence as he goes about securing his object by entirely inappropriate means. The comedy of the scenario would be enough, but Frayn has more on his mind. This is a novel about novels, about writing. It's a kind of metafiction which explores "the trick" of fiction. What is it that writers do? How do they create their stories? Do they invent? Or do they plunder their own lives and the lives of those around them? In the manner of most good metafiction, this one raises more questions than it answers. In the end, the origin and status of what we have just read is never quite resolved. Is this simply a collection of the protagonist's letters? Or is it the 'factual novel' he has lately been writing in competition with his wife? Or is it in fact a novel written by his wife, based on their shared experiences? Or one written by his Australian academic friend to whom these 'letters' were addressed? Or even one by the biographer who was urgently trying to locate them for his own dire ends? We never really know - which is part of the trick of it.

Written in a form of protagonist's letters to his Australian friend, the novel is an subtle and psychologically exact depiction of moral degradation of an ordinary man (not a bad or evil one in his essence but somewhat bilious and self-absorbed) afflicted with envy. He has received a windfall of love, goodness and generosity, but being unable to surmount personal jealosity he loses respect of his colleagues and even his job itself and turns a sting of his malice against his wife and only friend until this destruction becomes his self-destruction.

An excellent reading: exquisite form, rich language and characters that remain in memory.

am ordering the book today. i saw the play in nyc and thought it was the funniest thing i have ever seen. worth a trip from almost any place - it is so well acted and the energy of the actors cannot be overstated. a night of fun. ps. the 5 rating is in anticipation.

NOISES OFF! is by far the best play you will ever read. THE FUN NEVER STOPS. READ IT NOW!

It's such a shame that both the script and the movie are out of print. "Noises Off!" is the funniest comedy I have ever seen or read.

In "Noises Off!" a group of actors is preparing to stage a production of the smash farce "Nothing On." This is part of why this play is so funny: The play that the actors are butchering is hilarious in itself. All of the actors and stage hands are inept in their own unique way. They forget lines and stage directions, lose contact lenses and deal with a set that won't work right. In each act, at least one actor has it out for another. Flowers, bottles of alcohol and entirely too many sardines create havoc. Frayn reaches supreme physical and verbal comedy.

If you've seen it on stage, you know how funny it is (and how difficult to perform). But, the script contains hilarious "bios" of the actors that presumably appear in the playbill. And the side-by-side scripts of the second act (lines and directions for what is happening on stage and back stage) are really funny. This play is the funniest thing I've read!

Note about the movie: Unlike the movie, the play is not set in the U.S. Consequently, place names and terminology are sometimes confusing. And, the play ends differently than the movie.

In September, 1941, Werner Heisenberg, then leading Nazi Germany's war-time effort to exploit the uses of nuclear fission, made a trip to Copenhagen to visit his former mentor, the brillant Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Together, in the 1920s, Bohr and Heisenberg had been instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics, complementarity and the uncertainty principle, concepts which provided the theoretical underpinning for modern nuclear physics and, ultimately, the atomic bomb. Hence, the reason for Heisenberg's visit to Bohr, and what Heisenberg and Bohr discussed during that visit, has been the subject of much historical speculation. It is this event which forms the basis for Michael Frayn's thought-provoking play of ideas, "Copenhagen".

Heisenberg's role in Germany's effort to develop atomic weapons has been the topic of much speculation, historians tending to place him on one side or the other of the moral dividing line. There are those who paint him as an evil tool of the Nazis, someone who willingly devoted himself to Germany's scientific efforts to develop an atomic weapon. From their perspective, there has been a tendency to read Heisenberg's 1941 visit to Bohr as an effort to recruit Bohr to the German scientific fold. There are others who see the visit as more enigmatic, who do not ascribe such clear intentions to Heisenberg, and who see in the historical record evidence that Heisenberg was a passive opponent of the Nazis' objectives, a scientist who quietly undermined the German scientific effort while ostenbibly remaining a "good" German.

Frayn brilliantly depicts the uncertainty of Heisenberg's motivations, as well as the uncertainty of what occurred at the meeting between the two scientists, using the theory of these physicists to illumine not the physical world, but the psychological world of human motives. "Uncertainty" thus describes not merely the behavior of the atom, but also the behavior of individuals living in ethically difficult historical circumstances. As Frayn notes in his Postscript to the text of this play, "thoughts and intentions, even one's own-perhaps one's own most of all-remain shifting and elusive. There is not one single thought or intention of any sort that can ever be precisely established."

"Copenhagen" is lucidly and sparely written, a play of dialogue among only three characters-Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife, Margrethe. There are, of course, numerous references to the esoteric world of theoretical physics, particularly as it developed in the 1920s, and the Postscript to the text is therefore especially helpful in understanding both the scientific and historical frames of reference for the play.

Read this little play-better yet, see it if you can-because "Copenhagen" is a dramatic work that truly deserves to be recognized as one of outstanding plays of recent years.

Who would think that a play about two theoretical physicists, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr would pack such dramatic interest for people with little background in nuclear physics? Yet Michael Frayn's Copenhagen provides both the human drama of the scientists involved in the nuclear weapons race between Nazi Germany and the Allied Forces ,and the ironic parallels between the Principle of Uncertainty in physics developed by these scientists and the unpredictability of outcomes involving human variables in their own lives. My rather "dry " summary of the content of this play, however, does not begin to convey the drama, irony and humour in the play . Three characters, Heisenberg, Bohr and his wife Margrethe met once again after their death to try to understand Heisenberg's "real " reason for his strange visit to Bohr in 1941 in occupied Copenhagen while Heisenberg was heading the German nuclear reactor program. Through the recollection of each from their points of view about the events of the past, the play reveals the personal and professional relationship between the two scientists and others in the elite scientifc community. The dialog is fast moving, sparkles with humor and dazzling description of the mind games of the brilliant and ideosycratic group of scientists. But in these exchanges between the characters, one understands how important and potentially deadly these "games" and the players can be for humanity. With the three perspectives of the same events provided by the three characters, the play reveals mulitple motives and meanings that conclude in the abrupt termination of the meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr in 1941 that might have been the reason that the Nazis failed to develop an atom bomb before the Allied Forces! Or maybe a lost opportunity for deterring the development of nuclear weapons by either side? In two acts, one is absorbed by the levels of relationship between the characters, the irony of academic brilliance and real life failures, the dilemma of pursuit of scientifc 'truth' and responsibility to humanity. Along with all these heady issues, however, ones gains enough knowledge of nuclear physics to see the parallel in the human drama of these scientists in their personal lives. This play is trully a heady trip that makes one want to slow down the racing of ideas in the dialog by going back to catch the multiple meanings one missed in the first reading. It makes one continue to post "what if's" about the development of nuclear weapon and the possible human histories of our lifetime. I saw the play in London before reading the book, but find the book to be a even more satisfying experience. Don't miss it!

In September, 1941, Werner Heisenberg, then leading Nazi Germany's war-time effort to exploit the uses of nuclear fission, made a trip to Copenhagen to visit his former mentor, the brillant Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Together, in the 1920s, Bohr and Heisenberg had been instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics, complementarity and the uncertainty principle, concepts which provided the theoretical underpinning for modern nuclear physics and, ultimately, the atomic bomb. Hence, the reason for Heisenberg's visit to Bohr, and what Heisenberg and Bohr discussed during that visit, has been the subject of much historical speculation. It is this event which forms the basis for Michael Frayn's thought-provoking play of ideas, "Copenhagen".

Heisenberg's role in Germany's effort to develop atomic weapons has been the topic of much speculation, historians tending to place him on one side or the other of the moral dividing line. There are those who paint him as an evil tool of the Nazis, someone who willingly devoted himself to Germany's scientific efforts to develop an atomic weapon. From their perspective, there has been a tendency to read Heisenberg's 1941 visit to Bohr as an effort to recruit Bohr to the German scientific fold. There are others who see the visit as more enigmatic, who do not ascribe such clear intentions to Heisenberg, and who see in the historical record evidence that Heisenberg was a passive opponent of the Nazis' objectives, a scientist who quietly undermined the German scientific effort while ostenbibly remaining a "good" German.

Frayn brilliantly depicts the uncertainty of Heisenberg's motivations, as well as the uncertainty of what occurred at the meeting between the two scientists, using the theory of these physicists to illumine not the physical world, but the psychological world of human motives. "Uncertainty" thus describes not merely the behavior of the atom, but also the behavior of individuals living in ethically difficult historical circumstances. As Frayn notes in his Postscript to the text of this play, "thoughts and intentions, even one's own-perhaps one's own most of all-remain shifting and elusive. There is not one single thought or intention of any sort that can ever be precisely established."

"Copenhagen" is lucidly and sparely written, a play of dialogue among only three characters-Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife, Margrethe. There are, of course, numerous references to the esoteric world of theoretical physics, particularly as it developed in the 1920s, and the Postscript to the text is therefore especially helpful in understanding both the scientific and historical frames of reference for the play.

Read this little play-better yet, see it if you can-because "Copenhagen" is a dramatic work that truly deserves to be recognized as one of outstanding plays of recent years.

Looking back on events of his childhood from the wisdom of old age, Stephen Wheatley recounts important events from his childhood. Frayn tells a story of 2 boys inventing a world around them, with the second world war unfolding around them, unsurprisingly they are obsessed with the idea of spies in their midst. Their increasing obsession with their game, leads them to some unexpected discoveries.

This book is full of acute observations of youth. Outlandish games, the fickleness of children towards each other, the towering and unquestionable domination of adults over their lives.

I enjoy stories where the innocence and naievity of youth is retold through knowing adult eyes and this book was no exception. Its part mystery, part rites of passage. Well written and incredibly evocative of childhood and days gone by.

Remember the stereotypical figure of a spy in his overcoat silhouetted against the night sky? The figure was pretentious, intriguing, and alluring in some romantic fashion. Michael Frayn's "Spies" is much the same.

Frayn's narrator is Stephen Wheatley, a boy living in England during WWII. He and his friend Keith begin keeping tabs on Keith's mother, believing she is a German spy. What starts out as an innocent game leads to discoveries about life, love, and betrayal. The tragedies of war are funneled through this story into the damaging affects of family secrets. Stephen and Keith, our young spies, will never be the same. With finesse, Frayn leads us through the foggy tunnels of a British neighborhood and the foggier tunnels of his narrator's mind. Stephen is a complex and well-drawn creation. Symbolism plays a pleasing and unifying part.

"Spies" does so many things efficiently that it's easy to overlook its faults. Perhaps my greatest hindrance in plodding through the first 150 pages was the conspicious brevity of dialogue. Too bad. When the characters spoke, I found myself actually involved in their story. We spend so much time in Stephen's head that I found it hard to know or care deeply for any of the periphery characters. Stephen is so self-absorbed with his own insecurities and logic that he gives us little time to know others around him. Sure, that may be his personality, but I found it distracting. Who, reading this book, wouldn't like to know more about Keith or Barbara or Keith's mother or...? Well, I don't want to give anything away.

Having scanned reviews before reading the book, I expected to dislike the ending much more than I did. Actually, I felt the slow unveiling of the truth was well-paced and surprising without being forced. The final chapter was, indeed, a flightly sketch of Stephen's entire life. Although I wanted to know more, by that time I was so tired of being in his head that I was simply ready to turn the final page.

Overall, I enjoyed the elements of story, plot, and setting. If you're ready for a jump back into childhood days of imagination, then take the time to know young Stephen Wheatley. You'll be spending a lot of time with him.

A fragrance, a taste, a numinous sense of deja vu--all familiar literary devices that, in a sensual rush, transport a narrator and reader to a lost moment vividly, but narrowly, recalled. In the course of the tale, the recollection expands, through paths at first dimly remembered but, over time, recovered with increasing clarity. Michael Frayn deploys these Proustian materials brilliantly, detailing with quick strokes a lost world of childhood in wartime London, of proto-suburban enclaves that are more like thatch villages than city neighborhoods, where even hidden lives seem transparent, everyone seems to be watching everyone else, and nothing escapes the attention of the village children, those custodians of every local scandal, romance, adventure, and suspicion.

The story begins meekly, as a trip down memory lane, and slowly, like a Ravelian Bolero, gains in intensity and pace. One of Spies' most impressive aspects is, in the interplay between narrator and narration, the way in which Frayn withholds from the reader information that the young Stephen could not yet have figured out or understood. This allows the story, despite the older Stephen's omniscient point of view, to unfold naturally and almost perfectly from a child's-eye view, but blended with adult-perspective hindsight to provide texture and depth and, in some instances, additional layers of ambiguity.

Spies will appeal strongly to readers of a certain age, who as children in a pre-television era relied on their own resourcefulness and imagination to entertain themselves, who literally assembled their own universes from found materials. Spies is, moreover, one of the very best depictions of a child's groping to make sense of the adult world from within the conspiratorial know-it-all world of childhood.

I must confess, however, that I was tempted to dock Frayn a star for the unsatisfying--for me--way in which he handled aspects of the concluding 20-30 pp (it's no spoiler to mention this--plenty of reviews already have). But the sated sense of satisfaction in which I basked as I closed the book precluded anything other than full credit. With economical prose, vivid characterization, and superbly realized WWII fringe-London mise-en-scene, Michael Frayn has added another small gem to his oeuvre, one you will tear through in a sitting, pausing only, I'll warrant, to reflect on your own lost world of childhood.

As I read this play, my family is in the process of moving a thousand miles away from the farm where I grew up. Though I am so far away from the Russian culture and time of this play, the themes of place, tradition, and inevitable change resonated inside of me, and I am grateful to Chekhov for the way he has handled them.

The Cherry Orchard is a play about change, and the symbolism is pretty easy to recognize. What makes it stand apart, I think, from a thousand other plays on the same theme is its wonderful sense of comedy, of smiling sadness. Chekhov all his life insisted it was a comedy. As the Cherry Orchard slips away from the Ranevskys, they seem to smile at its going. As they are unable to change their habits -- still lending money they don't have, still spending extravagantly -- they quietly laugh at their own foolishness. The change comes, and they leave, heartbroken -- but embracing the change at the same time, only feebling struggling against it. One feels saddest, in the end, for Lopakhin, the new owner of the Cherry Orchard. He seems to believe he has bought happiness and friends, but is quickly discovering the emptiness of money and possessions, as no one wants to borrow from him, and no one seems to pay him much heed at all.

Chekhov paints with a fine brush, and I appreciate that. There is no thunderstorming, no ranting and raving in this work. There is a fine and subtle, sad and comedic portrayal of a family and a place encountering change. It is a heartbreak with a smile.

The translation, though the only one I've read, seems good. It is easy to follow and rich in simple feeling.

if you'd like to discuss this play with me, or recommend something i might enjoy, or just chat, e-mail me at williekrischke@hotmail.com.

The cherry orchard is symbolic of the old order in rural Russia, and Chekhov's short play illustrates the social transformation started in the 19th century in a simple and impressive manner. I find it interesting that one previous reviewer calls the Cherry Orchard an "effective allegory of the Bolshevik revolution", since it was written long before 1917. This goes to show exactly how in tune with his times Chekhov was. Character development is limited in this play as there are many roles and few pages, but we are introduced to the classic types also found in other pre-revolutionary Russian literature: the arriviste businessman, the radical escapist student, the obnoxious clerk, the nostalgic aristorcrat, the loyal peasant. In the play, Madame Ravensky leaves her good-for-nothing husband in Paris and returns to the family estate, which she owns with her brother Gayev. The economy of this aristocratic family is fledgling, but they are unable to change their spending patterns and accumstom themselves to a lower living standard. They are also unwilling to cut down the cherry orchard and use the land for villa development, as they are urged by the crude but business-savvy businessman Lopakhin. Lopakhin eventually buys their entire property at an auction, and the reality of the new age eventually dawns on everyone except the ancient servant who takes his last breath still repeating 'young wood, green wood'. An almost spooky dialogue occurs in the last act between Lopakhin and the radical student Trophimov, with the 20th century future of Russia clearly in the balance: work and money, represented by Lopakhin, is rejected by the young utopian idealist. In retrospect, this single scene gives a mind-boggling perspective on Russian history; and some sense of why Russia is still a barbarous country of 'dirt, vulgarity and boredom' as described by the disgruntled characters in Chekhov's play.

"How should one live?" is the fundamental question driving most of Chekhov's work, and it is very overtly laid bare in The Cherry Orchard. Should the aristocratic family in decline stick to owning their cherry orchard (representative of the grandiose trappings of Russian aristocracy), or give in to modern commercialization in order to survive? What is the value of tradition, and how many trees should one own? Chekhov will not answer these questions for you, but he poses them in most interesting ways. In addition to wise insights into such fundamental dilemmas, Chekhov also provides a lot of witty banter, and a great slice-of-life view at 19th century Russian high culture. But this is not just a Russian play or a 19th century play; its themes, questions, and prospective answers are relevant for individuals coping with society and history in any place, and at any time.

Checkov was a master of composing life's largest problems into beautiful language and ordinary situations which the entire world could understand. Granted he wrote them a long time ago but the underlying situation exists everywhere today. Here are three sisters completely unable to move on with their lives. They are unhappy, they are desperate for a change of scene, they are forced to give up anyone they love to someone else but yet they remain glued to the exact place where all of this occurs. Olga has passed her prime, Masha loves someone other than her husband, and Irina has no idea what could possibly make her happy and all they do is talk about change, but never do anything active. And in the end it all comes full circle and we as an audience, a reader, need to decide how to not fall into such a life rut, to learn by their actions as we do from Aesop's fables. This play is just written a great deal better, with a little more comedy and tugging at the heartstrings.