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:
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.)
(AT RISE: ROBERT and LEONORA are in bed, making love, Leonora on top with herback 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'ssexual frenzy will increase to the orgasm indicated below.)
HENRY: The paper this morning called it The Copenhagen Interpretation. NielsBohr debated Einstein and won. Poor Einstein, nobody believes him any more. Thecity fathers welcome him as a hero, the greatest genius of his time, they celebrateEinstein Day, but his peers prefer to listen to an unknown from Denmark. TheCopenhagen 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 TheOregon Interpretation. We should be across the street right now, telling them aboutit. 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 itworks. No wonder poor Einstein is in a tizzy. The paper quotes him as saying, "Goddoes not play dice with the universe." Bohr disagrees. Well, God may play dice, allright, but the content of quantum mechanics still isn't something to dismiss. Bohr'sclose to the truth but he looks reality square in the eye and is afraid to face the socialconsequences 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 themup. 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 anotherdimension.
HENRY: She's probably still drunk. You shouldn't have ordered that last bottle ofchampagne.
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 toBrussels, to get pregnant by Einstein.
The Sadness of Einstein and other plays at Amazon.
1 comment:
Hmm, I wish I had absorbed by osmosis the book I checked out called Quantum, the nature of reality as debated by Einstein and Bohr and I could better appreciate this play, but I did recently read a book about Jung and the physicist ?? my mind draws a blank, oh well, I did enjoy the dialogue, I thought it was lively and sexual. Ha.
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