Breaking the Code

Play (1986)
by Hugh Whitemore
Directed by Scott Edmiston
Central Square Theater
Central Square, Cambridge, MA
April 2-26, 2026

Scenic Designer: Janie E. Howland; Lighting Designer: Karen Perlow; Sound Designer: Aubrey Dube; Projections Designer: SeifAllah Salotto-Cristobal; Technical Director & Builder: Al Gentile

With Eddie Shields (Alan Turing), Paula Plum (Sara Turing), Matthew Beagan (Christopher Morcom, Ron miller, Nikos), Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Pat Green), David Bryan Jackson (Dilwyn Knox, John Smith), Dom Carter (Mick Ross)

Alan Turing (Eddie Shields) is a genius, fascinated with numbers. He forms a deep and penetrating connection with a school friend, Christopher Morcom (Matthew Beagan); Morcom’s early death spells a lifelong tragic influence upon Turing.

Because of his brilliance, Turing is brought on, during the 1940s, to a highly secret enterprise at Bletchley Park, where British intelligence services are trying to crack the so-called Enigma Code, used by the Germans to plan their bombings. Cracking the code is thought to be the key to winning the war, and indeed, Turing leads the team that figures out how to do it. Along the way, in service to this enterprise, Turing invents an electro-mechanical device that represents the first computer. After the war, Turing is hired at Britain’s National Physical Laboratory and at the University of Manchester, developing his early advances in computing and setting the stage for the design and implementation of the modern computer.

Turing is avowedly homosexual and seeks companionship when he can find it, which he does with Ron Miller (Matthew Beagan), whom he encounters at a bar. This connection leads to a robbery which then Turing reports to the police. When Turing indicates that his relationship with Miller is homosexual, the police arrest him on a morals charge. Things do not go well after that. (See spoilers section for more.) Along the way, Turing’s mentor at Bletchley, Dillwyn (Dilly) Knox (David Bryan Jackson), provides ongoing cautionary notes for Turing which offers an ironic twist in the final outcome. (See spoilers.) Turing’s mother, Sara (Paula Plum), offers somewhat unaffable responses earlier on, but, in the final say, other sides show. (See spoilers.) And Pat Green (Josephine Moshiri Elwood), Turing’s colleague and dear friend, who seeks a relationship with him, offers a clear but thoughtful insight into the interaction of homosexuality and marriage at the time.

Eddie Shields is an amazing actor who pulls this role off with a special kind of finesse that one really needs to see in action. In all of his performances, Shields carries a tragic poignancy that hides just beneath the surface, but which he embodies with a technical sophistication that makes his portrayals not only deeply affecting but complex and deeply interesting. Here, he oozes the longing he feels for his friend Christopher, but surrounds it with a containment and a restraint that makes that longing even more intense. That makes, as well, his responses to his mother’s continuing dismissals of one sort or another that come from his mother that much more explosive. Shields captures Turing’s bottled secrets in twitches and stammering, but his character, as well, demonstrates forceful expressions of a brilliantly conceived theoretical vision. All in all, Shields’ brilliant portrayal of playwright Whitemore’s eloquent rendition of Turing represents a nuanced and complex compendium of genius radiating through a burdened soul. Shields penetrates, bearing the weight of intellectual brilliance in the body of a passionate man unable to have the love he seeks, with glitterings of it rising above the enduring and searing aches throughout. It’s a masterful realization of the role.

Supporting cast is also excellent, with Paula Plum performing an eloquent and thoughtful job as Turing’s mother, showing the harsh sides with a capably restrained indifference that turns to something quite different later on. Plum gives it her all, with a deft elegance in her portrayal throughout, graceful in the character’s many moods and thoughtfully executed. It’s a wonderful performance.

As Pat Green, Turing’s sort-of paramour, but not really, Josephine Moshiri Elwood is also excellent, with an unmatched poise, a sense of sympathetic understanding and sensitivity that come through with intelligence and quiet insightfulness. When, in the midst of what might seem like a romantic outing, Turing tells her he is a homosexual, Green simply says I know and Elwood carries it off superbly, without fanfare, but with a quietly understanding attunement that makes the whole thing make perfect sense.

In a variety of roles, as Christopher, Ron and another lover named Nikos, Matthew Beagan is most convincingly multidimensional and pulls off these quite different roles with great effectiveness; he does so with an artful and highly persuasive manipulation of accent and demeanor. And, my gosh, he gives an entire speech in modern Greek which sounds hugely authentic. I didn’t have Google Translate loaded up, but it sure sounded good to me.

In the role of Dillwyn Knox, Turing’s mentor, David Bryan Jackson does a quietly persuasive job, and his subtle evocation of the role makes the gotcha moment near the end that much more dramatic. And, as Mick Ross, the investigator who condemns Turing, Dom Carter is straightforward and businesslike, carrying forth his somewhat unpleasant role with demeanor and aplomb.

Lighting by Karen Perlow, and video by SeifAllah Salotto-Cristobal displayed on a series of screens hovered above the stage, are well done, and the central screen which displays an epigram for each scene above stage center does its job effectively.

Overall, director Scott Edmiston has done a masterful job of carrying off this wonderfully written play that had been produced at Central Square some years back and which now roars into this beautifully realized production forty years after its writing.

Overall: a truly wonderful production with excellent acting all around and a masterful realization of the central role by the hugely talented Eddie Shields.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)