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For the Record
This story has been corrected to show the Institute for Advanced Study is not part of Princeton University though it is located in Princeton, N.J.
It is difficult to overemphasize Albert Einstein’s effect on the 20th century. As a young patent clerk in Switzerland, he published a series of scientific articles that revolutionized the world of physics and brought him prestigious academic positions in Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and his native Germany.
Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, and, by the end of the century, an opinion poll of 100 distinguished physicists named him “the greatest physicist ever” (Sir Isaac Newton placed second). In 1933, Einstein and his family left Germany for America.
A Jew and a staunch pacifist, Einstein saw the threat of Nazi power. In 1939, a month before war began in Europe, he signed a letter to President Roosevelt warning that the Germans might be pursuing an atomic bomb and recommending that the U.S. commence concentrated research on nuclear fission and its destructive power. Einstein later regretted that letter and the A-bomb that resulted.
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If you go WHAT: “Einstein: A Stage Portrait” by Willard Simms WHEN: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Dec. 23 WHERE: The MTS Center for Theatre, 6320 Domingo Road NE HOW MUCH: $16 general public, $12 seniors and students. Call 379-5153 for ticket information. |
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He finished his life at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., home of Princeton University. These are some of the facts that you will learn from Willard Simms’s “Einstein: A Stage Portrait”- a one-man show directed and performed by Tom Schuch at the MTS Center for Theatre. One of the founders of Mother Road Theatre Company, Schuch has been portraying Einstein since 2001.
“Einstein” is set in the professor’s Princeton study in 1946 when he was 67. The play focuses on the personal side of the father of spatial relativity.
Schuch appears dressed in a rumpled three-piece suit and tie, no socks, and a grey wig designed by Anne Davis to capture Einstein’s iconic hairstyle that looks like he combed it with an eggbeater. Schuch’s Einstein speaks with a German accent directly to the audience.
He is anxious to be good company. He also wants to dispel some of the stories that exaggerate his eccentricities. He tells jokes, recites limericks, and recalls earlier events in his life. During those moments of reminiscence, light and sound operator Luis Ponce lowers and focuses the lights on the stage. Schuch does a fine job of fully inhabiting Einstein. His shuffling gait and forgetfulness become endearing, and his few scientific explanations are enlightening.
In 1999, Time magazine named Albert Einstein the “Person of the Century.” Tom Schuch and “Einstein” can help to show you why.
