THE SADNESS OF EINSTEIN
by Charles Deemer
THE CAST:
Robert Manfield, an amateur physicist, 20s
Henry Bruno, his companion, an amateur physicist, 20s
Leonora, a college student and prostitute, 20s
Oskar Gold, a businessman
Hermann, a businessman
Albert Einstein, the physicist (Oskar, Hermann and Einstein are played by the same actor)
THE TIME:
Autumn, 1927
THE PLACE:
Brussels, Belgium
THE SET:
A hotel room in Brussels. Entrance is stage left. A bed is stage right. Upstage, a window
looking down on the street. The bathroom is shared and located in the hall (exit stage left).
----
ACT ONE
1/
(AT RISE: ROBERT and LEONORA are in bed, making love, Leonora on top with her
back to the audience and a sheet around her. She frantically rides Robert below her.
HENRY is at the window, looking across the street with a pair of binoculars. Leonora's
sexual frenzy will increase to the orgasm indicated below.)
HENRY: The paper this morning called it The Copenhagen Interpretation. Niels
Bohr debated Einstein and won. Poor Einstein, nobody believes him any more. The
city fathers welcome him as a hero, the greatest genius of his time, they celebrate
Einstein Day, but his peers prefer to listen to an unknown from Denmark. The
Copenhagen Interpretation.
I-2.
(Henry turns to the bed.)
HENRY: For God's sake, woman, aren't you finished yet?
ROBERT: I think she's close
This was supposed to open a new play festival in Seattle but the theater lost its funding at the last minute. It still has never been produced. It was supposed to be the first of a Quantum Quartet but I got sidetracked with hyperdrama, the real "quantum" drama of our times.
My late friend Ger was a great fan of this script, which I sent to him in draft in Arizona, where he was living with a painter lady. He went ape for it, made some good suggestions. We were going to go up to Seattle for the opening together, the opening that never happened.
My late friend Ger was a great fan of this script, which I sent to him in draft in Arizona, where he was living with a painter lady. He went ape for it, made some good suggestions. We were going to go up to Seattle for the opening together, the opening that never happened.
