Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 23, 2020

For a brief time, Albert Einstein was a winter bird, flying to the comfortable climes of Pasadena for three winters, 1931, 1932 and 1933. He stayed the second and third time at Caltechs Athenaeum at what is now known as the Einstein Suite.

In a one-night-only performance, Einstein will be back at Caltech as an unseen presence in Kres Merskys one-woman play, The Life and Times of A. Einstein, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Beckman Auditorium.

Although Einstein was a visiting professor at Caltech, he ultimately decided to accept a position at Princeton University in New Jersey. But he had fond memories of Pasadena: Here in Pasadena it is like Paradise, he once wrote. Always sunshine and clear air, gardens with palms and pepper trees and friendly people who smile at one and ask for autographs.

In Merskys play, the audience is a throng of reporters waiting to interview him in 1934 after his time in California, and when he was already settled in at Princeton. The occasion is Einsteins birthday, and his secretary Ellen Schoenhammer (Mersky) is attempting to entertain and answer questions as the reporters await his arrival. She will reveal aspects of Einsteins household when the new housekeeper, Anna, has made a mistake, and shell tell reporters what not to ask, what to expect and even attempt to explain in layman terms Einsteins theory of relativity. Youll meet her again, 17 years later after the World War II has ended, and as she announces Einsteins death in 1955.

Between those three time jumps, Einstein and his generation had seen many changes. Born in 1879 into an Ashkenazi Jewish family, Einstein was a citizen of the German Empire from 1879 to 1896. After renouncing his German citizenship, Einstein became a Swiss citizen in 1901. By 1934, he was already renowned for having been awarded a Nobel Prize in 1921. Yet, 1934 was a turbulent time for Europe, and an increasingly dangerous place for Jews.

In Germany, Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933, then Fhrer the following year. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Einstein became a US citizen in 1940, five years before the end of World War II.

Ellen Schoenhammer is completely fictionalized creation by Mersky but based on Helen Dukas (1896-1982), Einsteins secretary from 1928. Dukas was with Einstein and his second-wife Elsa when they were in Pasadena. She remained with him after Elsas death in 1936. Dukas went on to protect Einsteins legacy, including co-writing books on him; Einstein was effectively Dukas life work until her own death.

After researching Dukas for five years, Mersky wrote a play about what being a genius secretary might have been like. Her Ellen, like Dukas, is a German Jewish woman and devoted to her employer. In one of its previous iterations, the play received a good review from the LA Weekly during its one-month run at Theatre West in 2010.

Under the direction of her husband, Paul Gertson, Mersky has taken this show to a variety of venues, most recently for a one-night performance in Modesto, but surely there are few venues better suited than Beckman Auditorium for such a show. There will undoubtedly be audience members who better understand Einsteins theories and his impact on science, as well as modern culture. But the play will also surely leave future scientists with the notion that secretaries matter and good secretaries can burnish ones reputation and preserve ones legacy, and even become a reflection of themselves.

The Life and Times of A. Einstein begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at the Beckman Auditorium, 1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena. Tickets are $10 to $40. For tickets an more information, call the Caltech Ticket Office at (626) 395-4652 or visit events.caltech.edu/series/pa/einstein.

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Kres Mersky's one-woman play 'The Life and Times of A. Einstein' is performed one night only at Caltech - Pasadena Weekly

Category: Ashkenazi
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