'Breaking the Code' explores sad chapter in British gay history

Mention Alan Turing's name in conversation and don't be surprised if the response is "Alan who?"

"Aside from World War II history buffs and computer enthusiasts, most people don't know who he was," admits Adam Zahler, the director of the Underground Railway Theatre's production of Hugh Whitemore's play about Turing, Breaking the Code, presented at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge through May 8. Elliot Norton Award winning actor Allyn Burrows plays Turing in the production.

The play premiered in London in 1986. It was presented on Broadway a year later, where it was nominated for three Tony awards. Derek Jacobi, who played Turing, later went on to star in the film version, produced for television by the BBC in 1996.

"Part of the reason for Turing being unknown to this day is that the work he was involved in was kept top secret until the mid 1970s, when it was officially declassified by the British government," director Zahler adds. "There are still aspects of his work that have yet to be declassified, due to a concern for national security."

But there is another reason the Brits have kept mum about Turing: he was gay, and was punished for being open about his sexual orientation. While the play reveals his top- secret work - Prime Minister Winston Churchill later lauded Turing with helping the Allies to win the war - it also chronicles the persecution Turing suffered because of his sexual identity.

Nothing’s black or white

"Alan Turing viewed the world differently than his fellow British neighbors," Zahler explains. "He loved life. He liked who he was. He felt there were many more important things in the world to deal with than the issue of who one sleeps with. He never understood why he was persecuted for being gay. He simply asked, 'Why should it matter?'"

Credited as the "Father of Modern Computing," Turing was a brilliant mathematician who invented the Turing Machine, an early prototype of a computer. It enabled code-breakers housed in England's Bletchley Park to ultimately break the Enigma code, used by the Nazis to encrypt their top-secret military messages. Once broken, the Allies were able to learn of the Axis's military plans and to successfully thwart many of them.

"In the play, Turing delivers a wonderful monologue about the nature of right and wrong," Zahler says. "And he concludes that in mathematics, as in life, it is not black and white, that there isn't always a clear cut answer about what's right and what's wrong. And he saw his sexuality in the same way. He felt that it is not something that can be judged."

The play explores Turing's work before and during World War II, and explains his breakthrough mathematical theories. It also deals with his life after the war and how he was subjected to persecution under Britain's Labouchere Amendment (aka the Gross Indecency Law), which was also used to persecute Irish author Oscar Wilde, fifty years before Turing. Wilde was found guilty and was incarcerated in Reading Gaol prison.

In 1952 Turing was given a choice of a prison term (like Wilde) or to undergo hormonal treatment - injections of estrogen which resulted in Turing growing breasts -- believed to be effective in reducing the libido. During the Cold War, Turing lost his security clearance as a result of this persecution. He ultimately committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41 from cyanide poisoning.

"Breaking the Code has a lot to say to today's audiences," Zahler believes. "As a society, we've undergone a lot of changes, yet we are still not accepting of people's differences. The issue of same-sex marriage is an example of this. The play makes bold statements about the price a man like Turing paid for being gay, and it makes the struggles for today's lack of progress in the same-sex marriage issue all the more poignant. Turing says, in the play, I am who I am, and it doesn't affect what I do. I recently read the transcript of the Proposition 8 trial in California about same-sex marriage, and it clearly stated that the reason it was being denied is that it is a 'civil rights issue.' By subjecting him to the Gross Indecency Law, he was denied his rights as a man and as a citizen, the same way we are denying the rights of gay people today in our society."

Zahler adds that it has taken Britain many years to acknowledge Alan Turing's contributions not only to the Allied victory and to modern computing, but also to apologize for how they treated him. "It was Prime Minister Gordon Brown decades later who finally said publicly that Turing deserved better, and that the U.K. owed Turing an apology for how he was treated," Zahler says.

Breaking the Code, by Hugh Whitemore, directed by Adam Zahler, will be presented by the Underground Railway Theatre, Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, from April 7-May 8. For ticket information and a list of events associated with the production, visit their website at: CentralSquareTheater.org.