By Steve Simmons – Posted 12:25 a.m., Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Albert Einstein’s secretary is coming back to Theatre West.
Actress and playwright Kres Mersky is bringing her one-woman show The Life and Times of A. Einstein, a funny, touching and informational view of the scientist, as seen through the eyes of his devoted secretary, chauffeur, bodyguard and more, back to the theater where it was born for a perfromance at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 26. (For details, see below.)
The show is part of the theatre company’s Solopalooza 2.022, featuring a diverse array of 10 one-person shows produced by board member Dina Marrone, who kicked off the festival in May with The Italian in Me. The series continues with offerings including As Always, Jimmy Stewart with Steve Nevil, Saturday and Sunday, July 9 and 10; 18 Minutes of Fame: A Musical Journey with Barbara Minkus, Friday through Sunday, July 22-24, and Too Old. Too Asian. Too Short — “the story of an unlikely showgirl” with Pamela Najera, Friday, July 29.
In addition to being a solution to keeping the stage active during the days of COVID, “the shows are all completely different,” says Morrone. “There’s nothing the same about any of them. They introduce you to colorful characters you’ll be thrilled to meet who will make you roar with laughter, shed a tear, or inspire and lift you up.”
A prime example is Mersky’s Ellen Schoenhammer, (she changed the name of the actual secretary Helen Dukas). “She’s the perfect neurotic, busybody doting on this genius and at the start of the play making sure everything is perfect for a party,” says Morrone. “And Kres is terrific.”
Finding The Hook
Mersky settled on the structure for her play while researching at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. She came across a 1945 newspaper article that said Einstein would celebrate his birthday quietly with no press conference. In her piece, Einstein decides to talk to the press, turning the audience into a pack of reporters, and the play opens with Ellen preparing for a birthday party. She’s frazzled, decorating with balloons, because Anna, the incompetent girl hired to help, has messed up the cake order. Later she tells the baker by phone to be sure it has a choo-choo-train and a doggie.
It’s 1933 in a living room in Princeton, N.J. where the family settled after fleeing Nazi Germany. “He was on a hit list to be executed” reports Mersky. Sought after in both the Netherlands and England, “Einstein really wanted to come to America” and accepted an invitation from the Institute for Advanced Study.
Einstein did in fact conduct press conferences where he discussed such topics as groups facing persecution during WWII and the plight of Jews who couldn’t escape Germany.
Two subsequent conferences follow, covering a span of 25 years. While waiting for “The Professor” to arrive (he never comes) she fields questions and even tries to describe the famous Theory of Relativity. “With reporters shooting questions at her, she tries to explain and maybe she even knew a tiny bit,” says Mersky. “She gets it all convoluted in one of the show’s funnier moments.”
She gets caught up in her own memories and at one point finds herself singing Noel Coward’s Someday I’ll Find You. “It’s a nutty moment when she loses herself in the revelry,” says Mersky. She recalls how she and Einstein met by a lake in Germany, he was barefoot in sandals, and she had gun. She recalls that famous face, his big toes, “auditioning” for the job and even her secret attraction to him.
At the final press conference in 1955 she announces the death of the man she called “the greatest Jew since Jesus.” It didn’t actually happen. “She was overwrought,” Mersky said. “But it’s faithful to her spirit and that’s the goal. I thought, ‘I’ll give her those words,’ ”He sat on God’s shoulders. He felt God’s breath.”
Studying An ‘Iconic Man’
Bringing her story to life led Kresky to five years of research for her show and took her to the Caltech where Einstein was a visiting scientist in the early 1930s. She was allowed access to the Einstein Papers Project, publisher of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein that include his early work on the Theory of Relativity and the origins of quantum theory.
“I love researching, studying and writing, especially if it’s an historic subject (she also wrote a show about pioneering dancer Isadora Duncan) and I was always interested in this iconic man,” says Mersky.
And she relates to her heroine who “kept every scrap of material he wrote and even took things out of the trash to date, catalogue and file,” says Mersky. Dukas was a co-executor of Einstein’s literary heritage, “which she fiercely managed,” adds Mersky. “After her death we got a full volume of correspondence and personal stuff that had been kept under wraps, plus more scientific material to look at and learn from.”
“The volume of material on and about Einstein can be overwhelming,” says Mersky. And she’s especially fond of Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe. “You want to include everything, but at some point you have to stop. This is a 75-minute show, not an epic.”
A Worthwhile Character
“Her loyalty appeals to me,” says Mersky of this singular character who became part of the Einstein family and never married. “She never interfered with people who called or wanted to visit him, but if he went out without a coat she would run after him. She was aware of his girlfriends (who knew Einstein was a womanizer) and had some jealousy about that and was also concerned about his wife. And that’s in the show.” Merksy reports that she once asked an Einstein scholar is there was any truth to the rumor about a relationship between “the Man” and his secretary. “He almost jumped at me,” recalls Mersky. “He said, ‘don’t ever say anything negative about her. Do you realize what she did? Don’t ever call me again.’”
While Helen Dukas is mentioned in all the biographies, Mersky says, “I couldn’t find a book that talks about the vital role she played. While there’s nothing untrue about Einstein in the show, I had to take some artistic license to create Ellen’s inner world where she’s sometimes resentful, overworked and underappreciated.”
Mersky also had to find a way to explain how Ellen, a recent German Jewish émigré, could address the press in English. “I had her working for a publisher who translated English and, in my research, I discovered she worked for a publisher who translated English. It was a moment that kind of put me on my heels.”
After Einstein’s second wife Elsa died in 1938, Dukas became his cook, appointment maker and main caretaker. “Einstein was not interested in material wealth,” says Mersky, “and not as rich as you would think someone of his stature would be. But he left Helen and his stepdaughter his copyrights and royalties.”
Her own papers were released after she died in 1982. “They show a woman who was funny as hell,” says Mersky.
A Man To Admire
While audiences come to hear Ellen’s story, they also learn about Einstein. That he didn’t care about his personal appearance and often took old pants and sweatshirts out of the trash his wife and secretary had thrown away. Mersky also touches on his socialist political leanings and frank opinions of Stalin and the Soviet Union and the McCarthy hearings.
Mersky says it’s “the mastermind’s” qualities of courage and imagination that inspire her.
“It took courage to think differently about classical physics and think differently about some of the basic principles of science he rejected to find the Theory of Relativity,” says Mersky. It took belief in himself to not be afraid to go against the ingrained accepted theories of Newtonian physics. And to have his theory confirmed with a solar eclipse in 1919.”
He also had the courage to be outspoken and not hold back. When famed Black contralto Marian Anderson was going to sing near Princeton and not allowed in any hotels, Einstein invited her to stay with the family. And he later joined the NAACP. “A committed Zionist,” says Mersky, “he said that if Jews do not learn to get along with their Arab brothers and sisters, we’ve learned nothing.”
He went to Los Alamos to work on the creation of the atomic bomb with the belief that the Nazis couldn’t have it first. “He spent the rest of his life advocating for the eradication of nuclear weapons,” Mersky adds.
Dubbed “the world’s most famous refugee,” Einstein did face hurdles coming to the U.S. “He was German and we were fighting Germany,” says Mersky. “He was a Jew and people thought her had been a war resister and was probably a communist. But he did get in and start one of the most important refugee NGO’s, the International Rescue Committee in 1933, that is still working.”
“For me, he represents where the mind can go,” says Mersky. “He reconceived time and space and the nature of matter. To me that is mind blowing. Mathematicians worked it out, but he imagined what it would be like to travel so fast that you caught up with a light beam.”
Putting It Together And Coming Home
A longtime Theatre West member, Mersky started developing the show in the ’80s. “It’s been through a couple of iterations,” she says. The first version in ’83 was a four-character play with a play within a play. “It was interesting, but I could never nail the concept or make it work. But everybody loved the character of the secretary. So, it evolved into a one-person solo piece about Einstein and his secretary.”
Refinements came at the Mark Taper Forum Lab for works in progress and a 13-show run in the performance space under the John Anson Ford Theatre. And for the past 12 years she’s taken her family-friendly show to colleges and junior colleges, performing arts centers, libraries and many different venues.
She even did two performances at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium in 2020. “It was super cool, there were more than 800 people,” says Mersky. “I thought ‘I’m in for it,’ he’s such a towering figure there. But they all loved it and didn’t think I exploited his theories.”
“It’s great to bring it back to my home company, but I’m always nervous to do the show in front of my peers,” says Merksy. “I think ‘uh-oh, it better be good.’”
She describes the show as a “passion project and labor of love” that she continues to perform “because it’s relevant, universal and it resonates. People shouldn’t come to understand his theories. It’s not a science show and I have baby layman’s understanding at best. I hope they get a picture of an indomitable woman with her own frustrations and keen awareness that his was one of the great minds of our time.”
Theatre West is at 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, L.A. Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door and $30 for groups of 15 or more. For reservations call 323-851-7977. For online tickets, visit http://theatrewest.org. Parking is available in a private lot across the street for $5 cash (no credit cards).
Steve Simmons is an accomplished writer and editor who writes about a wide array of topics including entertainment. His successful experience at The Beverly Hills Courier and other publications set the stage for his blog. Contact Steve at steve.simmons0211@gmail.com or 626-788-6734.
