Questions?
Breaking the Code
Discuss Act 1.
What Happens
The play is about Alan Turing, and particularly his homosexuality. The conflict or dramatic tension that Act 1 seems to set up for Act 2 relates to the consequences of Turing’s arrest for homosexuality.
The chronology of the play is tricky to follow, as it hops back and forth from 1952 to Turing’s teenage years in the late 1920s and work at Bletchley Park during World War 2.
Who Is Alan Turing?
Socially very awkward. It seems like he might be somewhere on the autism spectrum (in fact, while autism wasn’t a thing people were diagnosed with when Turing was alive, there is at least one modern theory that he had Asperger’s).
He has a strained relationship with his mother. He resents that she doesn’t understand his math and science, although she tries to support him in it.
His romantic relationships are also low-quality, partly because he has to keep them secret. The one we see in 1952 with Ron Miller seems to be short-lived and purely physical. But it seems like he might have formed a long-term, emotionally rewarding relationship with Chris Morcom had there been time when they were teenagers.
Next
Continue discussing Breaking the Code.
Read Act 2, paying particular attention to the “who is Alan Turing” question(s).