Thirst

I've been such a prolific, obsessive writer for so long (nearly half a century) that I've never had time to do the reading I've wanted to do. My reading was always practical: research or student work, largely. Now I am reading whatever the hell I feel like reading, and on the Kindle, and I am having a grand old time. There is so much great work out there, it's staggering. Humbling if one can contribute just a drop to the literary universe.

I just finished an incredible book about the development of religion, about which much more later, and have started a recent book about one of my favorite events, the Solvay conference of physicists in 1927, the setting for my play The Sadness of Einstein. We all know Einstein's remark "God does not play dice..." but few know he lost the debate to Niels Bohr on this at the Solvay Conf in 1927.

Here is the opening of the play, written in 1985, my one and only opening with a sex act:

(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.

(Henry turns to the bed.)

   HENRY:   For God's sake, woman, aren't you finished yet?

   ROBERT:   I think she's close

   HENRY:   It's time you got dressed.

   ROBERT:   (to Leonora) Are you close?

(Leonora responds with a passionate cry and increases the tempo of her "riding.")

   HENRY:   (looking out the window) One day the world will be talking about The

     Oregon Interpretation. We should be across the street right now, telling them about

     it. The Copenhagen Interpretation is wrong, it has to be. Know what Bohr thinks?

     That it doesn't matter what quantum mechanics is about. All that matters is that it

     works. No wonder poor Einstein is in a tizzy. The paper quotes him as saying, "God

     does not play dice with the universe." Bohr disagrees. Well, God may play dice, all

     right, but the content of quantum mechanics still isn't something to dismiss. Bohr's

     close to the truth but he looks reality square in the eye and is afraid to face the social

     consequences of his won insights.

(He turns to the bed again.)

   HENRY:   We don't have all day, Robert.

   ROBERT:   Are you close?

(As before, Leonora replies with a passionate yelp.)

   HENRY:   Too much booze last night. I don't know why you're always picking them

     up. You'd think I bore you.

   ROBERT:   You don't bore me, Henry.

   HENRY:   Then what do you need a woman for?

   ROBERT:   I find them fascinating.

   HENRY:   Does that mean you have to fuck them?

   ROBERT:   Their sexuality if what fascinates me. Look at her. She's in another

     dimension.

   HENRY:   She's probably still drunk. You shouldn't have ordered that last bottle of

     champagne.

   ROBERT:   She likes me. She said she wants to have my baby.

   HENRY:   Oh barf!

   ROBERT:   Actually it's Einstein's baby she really wants. That's why she came to

     Brussels, to get pregnant by Einstein.

I originally intended this play to be the first of four about the same characters, The Quantum Quartet, but the ambitious project got hijacked by my sudden interest in hyperdrama, which seemed to me to fulfill the quantum principles more than traditional drama. I still think highly of this play, even though it has never been produced. However, a production was scheduled in Seattle but the company went broke before we got to its opening, not the first time this has happened in my career.  I love the balls and recklessness of this play! Just as I love the balls and recklessness in some of my short stories from the late 60s and early 70s. Much of my best work has been formally and thematically daring. (But these things are relative: many would consider this same work "traditional." I always demand a story, for example. A STORY. Many avant-garde writers would criticize me for this very point.)

The Sadness of Einstein and other plays at Amazon.