“Einstein’s Dreams”

In 1993 Alan Lightman wrote a book called "Einstein's Dreams". Lightman himself teaches physics as well as science writing at MIT, and the book became a best seller, which appealed to those from the sciences and humanities alike. It has been translated into thirty languages. The book describes Einstein when he was an unknown patent clerk in Bern, in 1905. He falls asleep, and the reader shares his dreams. These are thirty tales of places where time behaves differently: it is circular, it is erratic, it slows down as altitude increases, so that rich people build houses on mountaintops in order to live longer. The book does not have much plot. It is like the series of dreams it describes, loose in structure and poetic.

More than two dozens independent theatrical and musical productions have been based on this book.[1] This is more than the number of any other theater works based on Einstein. Apparently the poetic form of the book proved inspiring to theater artists more than had the biography of the man himself. We will focus on a few of these productions.

The book was adapted as a musical in 2003. This surprising development was due to Brian Schwartz, a physicist who has played a leading role in organization of physics events. He controlled the theatrical rights to the book. In 2000 he saw a musical comedy off Broadway called "Fermat's Last Tango", which also dealt with science, and he contacted the authors and asked if they would be interested in adapting "Einstein's Dreams." The authors, Joshua Rosenblum, composer and lyricist, and Joanne Lessner, lyricist-librettist, found the project a challenge. The book does not have a clear plot structure, and in addition to the difficulty of transferring abstract ideas to the stage it became necessary to organize the material so that it would hold an audience for the entire evening. Plays demand a more coherent structure than books; you do not have the liberty of taking a break when you get tired and coming back to them the next day.

To deal with this problem, the playwrights added a character named Josette to the non-fictional characters in the book. The play has three main characters. These are Einstein, his good friend Besso and the newly invented Josette. Josette serves to tie the various dreams of time together. In an interview with Playbill magazine, Rosenblum and Lessner described the problems, and the introduction of Josette:

"She sort of intrigues and teases and guides him all at the same time," Rosenblum said. "She's very much a real woman to him, partly because he's unhappy with his wife, which was true in real life." Lessner said, "While the book is very well structured for what the book is, it doesn't translate easily to dramatic structure. It's this series of dreams, and then it just ends. There's no 'Eureka' moment of 'Oh, I've discovered relativity!'" Rosenblum observes, "The answer to his romantic dreams and his intellectual dreams all seem to be embodied in this woman, who is a fantasy and not a real person." In the show, Lessner said, "You see the young, struggling Einstein not being taken seriously, not happy in his life, escaping into his dreams"[2]

It appears that this production was a successful attempt to translate science to the stage. The authors recognized the necessity for dramatic structure, and for human personality as a mediating factor to the ideas. Oddly enough the fact that it was a musical seemed to help. Music, abstract in itself, seems to help put audiences in the mood to appreciate abstract ideas.

The book had in fact been adapted to the stage in non-musical form several years earlier without resounding success. The play was produced in a New York Fringe Festival in August 2001. The production was said to be overly intellectual rather than dramatic, though there was an effort to compensate for this by use of choreography, costumes and lighting. The production was stylized, actors dressed in white, illuminated with white light dimmed to yellowish tones to simulate the pre-automobile civilization. However the play did not restructure the book as did the musical, and in this apparently lay its weakness. It lacked a considered strategy to adapt the ideas to the different theatrical form.

Another off Broadway adaptation for the stage was done in 2003, by Kipp Erante Cheng, for the Holderness Theater Company, This production was apparently more poetic and dreamy, less intellectual, and therefore more successful in affecting the audience. Reviewers wrote:" There are a few too many actors, far too many wooden chairs, and too much intricately choreographed movement. All that movement and all those different voices are distracting, especially for such an intimate piece. However, the space is lovely--cozy, warmly lit, with just enough exposed brick, classroom-type furniture and overflowing bookshelves to convey the essence of Einstein. The actors use the space well, and in an energetic fashion. Their timeless (no pun intended) black-and-white costumes a visual complement to the warm brick walls and wood floors. As a whole, the play is more whimsical than wistful; it maintains an aura of poignancy, but more from the strength of the text than of the production. Anyone who enjoyed the novel (or, for that matter, enjoys Einstein) should certainly see this play. The beauty of the text far outweighs the shortcomings of the production."[3] It seems this production’s focus was on reproducing the atmosphere of the novel rather than the ideas, and therein lay its success.

Each of these productions was based on a book of generally abstract ideas, and translated the ideas in various ways into the theatrical medium. The more successful attempts made use of the abstract aspects of theater: music, lighting, mood. A direct verbal transference of the ideas was less successful. It was not enough to understand the material. It was necessary to find a way to mirror its essence in the theatrical medium.

Einstein the man

A play about Einstein himself, as a person, was produced in 1996 in New York by the American Jewish Theater and revived in 2002. This was a one-man play called "Einstein, A Stage Portrait" by Willard Simms, an author who specializes in plays which portray historical figures. The play takes place in 1946 in Princeton, where Einstein has gathered an informal meeting of people in order to set the record straight about his life and ideas. The playwright did a great deal of research, interviewing family members and colleagues in order to put together an accurate picture of the man. The play basically has Einstein talking about himself most of the time, and roams through his life and his work - from his youth as a chronic underachiever, to Nobel prize winner at forty-one, to forced exit from Nazi Germany and life at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies. Along the way he shares personal reminiscences, tells jokes and expresses his beliefs. He talks about his difficulties in school as a child, his two marriages, his children, his love for music, his politics, his religion and his battles with the press.

This play obviously focused on Einstein's personality and his feelings rather than his ideas, and probably on the more charming and positive aspects of it. (it's debatable whether his devotion to his work was the cause of his problematic personal relationships – see Arthur Miller’s book “Einstein and Picasso”[4]). However it seems to have endeared him to the audience, probably aided by the charm and charisma of the leading actor. The science in the play is accurate - Simms consulted with a physicist in writing it - but not very extensive. Relativity is described accurately but in a form simple enough for audiences to follow. The focus of the play is on Einstein the man. The leading actor in the 2002 production, Tom Schuch, is quoted in an interview: "Everybody's heard of Einstein, but not many people know about the human side of him," Schuch says. "That's the gist of the play." The philosophy behind this production was that theater audiences are interested in people rather than in ideas. There is certainly some truth in this, but the success of productions in a different vein shows there is also room for plays about ideas, if they are presented in appropriate theatrical form.

 http://www.lalt.org/archive/2001-2002/einstein/

“The Einstein Project”

In November 2000, the Berkshire Festival in Massachusetts produced a play called “The Einstein Project”, which apparently was broader in range as well as in theatrical innovation than the other productions described here. This play had actually been written some 15 years earlier, by Paul d'Andrea and Jon Klein, and produced several times before in less innovative form. Judging by reviews[5] its revival was due to the new interest in science plays caused by Michael Frayn's “Copenhagen”. This production utilized multimedia: newsreels and projections as well as live actors. The real Einstein is contrasted with the lovable celebrity; one aspect portrayed here is his problematic relationship with his son. The structure of the play is non linear in time. It begins with the explosion of the atomic bomb, which Einstein urged President Roosevelt to build. Then it flashes back to his youth as a clerk in the patent office in Switzerland and his World War I pacifist arguments with Fritz Haber, the inventor of mustard gas; and then jumps forward again to the World War II era. Other noted physicists appear in the play. One is Heisenberg, already known to audiences from "Copenhagen", another is Bohr. Audiences were exposed to the ideas as well as the personalities of Einstein and his colleagues. Apparently the primary strength of the production's effect stemmed from its trendy and impressive use of film and its jerky cinematic non linear structure, and it is considered a striking and thought provoking piece of theater.

Two Short Plays

Two one act plays about Einstein were staged together in New York in 2005: Mass, by Lauren Gunderson, and The Day Einstein Died, by J.B. Edwards. They were done at the CUNY Graduate Center, which has been central in organizing programs dealing with humanities and theater and science, spearheaded by Brian Schwartz.[6] "Mass" is not about Einstein himself, but about his daughter Lieserl. It is a one-woman show which makes use of ideas from special relativity and Brownian motion and even some early quantum mechanics to describe Lieserl's journey to find and recognize her father.

“The Day Einstein Died” is set on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey. The "day", which indeed was the day of his death, is actually snapshots of his final years. At Einstein's side is his friend Johanna Fantova, to whom he relays his personal doubts and troubles. Another character in the play is singer Paul Robeson, whose passion for music as well as social justice was mirrored by Einstein, according to the playwright. This play does not have much science in it; the emphasis is on the personal character of the man. Judging by reviews it sounds more romanticized than accurate, but that is difficult to judge without obtaining the actual text, which I was unable to do at this time. In any case this obviously belongs to that category of science plays which attempts to bring the public closer to science by dramatizing the personality of the scientist himself.

Attempts in Dance

There has been a dance theater production called "Einstein's Daughters", by Kim Epipfano, produced in San Francisco in January, 2003. This is about Mileva, Einstein's wife, and asserts that her potential as a mathematician was thwarted by marriage and childbirth. It uses multimedia with a live sound score, dancing, special effects and aerial performances. The piece seems to have been theatrically striking but intellectually somewhat muddy and vague.

Right now the Rambert Ballet Company of England is working on a dance called “Constant Speed” in honor of the Einstein year. The piece is has been commissioned by the British Institute of Physics. Choreographer Mark Baldwin has been working with physicist Ray Rivers of the IOP to develop a piece based on the ideas of special relativity and Brownian motion. The dance is to have its premiere in London in May, 2005. Jerry Cowhig from the IOP, who commissioned the work, believes that “dance is an expressive medium and it will be ideal for abstract concepts like the theories of Einstein”.[7]

Conclusion

In conclusion, these works deal with Einstein from various angles, and in various styles. It is difficult to say which approaches were more successful without engaging in thorough research into audience reaction. Judging from reviews and impressions by various spectators, the stylized approach was the most striking. Plays that concentrate on human personality to the neglect of ideas are always successful if well acted, but in fact the most interest seemed to have been aroused by the musical production of "Einstein's Dreams", and by the abstract "Einstein Project", both of which highlighted the ideas and gave them strongly theatrical rather than realistic form. Perhaps it has been a mistake on the part of playwrights to assume that bringing science down to human form would be the most successful way of endearing it to audiences. Apparently the abstract ideas may best be conveyed and enjoyed when the theatrical presentation too engages in abstract stylization of the theatrical form, with use of music, multimedia, and unconventional structure. Indeed this has been the case with previous productions of science plays which were most successful in conveying ideas: both Frayn's much-discussed "Copenhagen", and the John Barrow-Luca Ronconi production of "Infinities."[8] After all, even non scientists enjoy abstract ideas and themes – most people love music, for example – and it is possible for them to extend this enjoyment to scientific and mathematical concepts if they are presented to them in an appropriate form. Apparently abstract and stylized forms of theater are the most effective means of doing so.

I am grateful to Professor Harry Lustig for his comments and suggestions.

REFERENCES

Einstein's Dreams:

Alan Lightman's homepage: http://web.mit.edu/humanistic/www/faculty/lightman.html

The musical:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/77371.html

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/sciart/0203/einstein.html

The play:

http://www.hep.yorku.ca/menary/courses/phys2040/misc/
einsteins_dreams_theatre_review.html

http://www.offoffoff.com/theater/2001/einsteinsdreams.php3

Einstein, a stage portrait:

http://www.curtainup.com/einstein.html

http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/020920/einstein.shtml

The Einstein Project:

http://www.curtainup.com/einsteinproject.html

Mass, The Day Einstein Died:

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/sciart/0405/2_readings.htm

http://www.williamsclub.org/ClubEvents/CurrentEvents.php

Einstein’s Daughters:

http://www.danceinsider.com/f2003/f0130_1.html

http://www.gildedserpent.com/articles21/Einsteinsdtrs.htm

http://www.baydance.com/kepiphano/einstein.htm