By Anne Levin
It is a story of friendship, familiar to those who know their Albert Einstein lore. Back in 1937, the scientist and music-lover invited famed contralto Marian Anderson to stay in his Mercer Street home after she was denied a room at the Nassau Inn — despite having just performed a standing-room-only concert at McCarter Theatre.
That meeting evolved into a lifelong friendship that is the subject of My Lord, What a Night, a play by Deborah Brevoort that comes to the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, April 28-May 17. In advance of the run, Brevoort and director Sheldon Epps will give a talk at Princeton Public Library on April 15 at 7 p.m.
Epps, who has New Jersey roots and has worked at McCarter, Paper Mill Playhouse, and elsewhere, has been involved in the play since its run at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., five years ago. He is on staff at Ford’s Theatre and serves as its artistic advisor.
“The play first came to some other people on the staff after Deborah had some smaller readings and workshops, actually in New Jersey,” Epps said this week. “I read it, and was fascinated with the subject matter — the fact that this relationship actually existed between these two icons in their own industries.”
Epps came on board to direct the play, but the pandemic put everything on pause. Once it was safe to return, the play was chosen to reopen the theater. “It was quite successful,” Epps said. “Since then, there have been a couple of other productions around the country.”
Epps told George Street Playhouse’s former artistic director David Saint about the play, but it was just as Saint was leaving. “He said he couldn’t make the choice but would pass it along, which he did,” Epps said. “They read it and were as taken with it as everyone else, and decided to put it into this season.”
In the book Einstein: His Life and Universe, author Walter Isaacson describes the physicist’s invitation to Anderson after the April 16, 1937 concert as a “deeply personal as well as a publicly symbolic gesture,” adding that whenever Anderson returned to Princeton, “she stayed with Einstein, her last visit coming just two months before he died.”
Brevoort’s play delves into the personalities of the two icons. “It’s interesting when you’re getting a look behind closed doors of people who are very well known as public figures,” Epps said. “It’s almost as if you’re peering through Einstein’s window. The play is about two distinct times in their lives, separated by about 10 years.”
Not surprisingly, Princeton “doesn’t come off as highly evolved” in the play, Epps said, “especially from Einstein’s point of view. Unfortunately, this instance of discrimination takes place at the Nassau Inn, where I’ve actually stayed years later (Epps is Black). It speaks to the fact that Princeton was a wealthy and academic community, but it had some problems. The unexpected thing for Marian was that this is not the deep South. New Jersey is a northern state where she did not think this kind of thing could happen to her.”
The two-act play is about the interactions of four characters: Einstein, Anderson, civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell, and Albert Flexner, son of Institute for Advanced Study founding director Abraham Flexner.
“He has to deal with Einstein, and he’s a handful,” Epps said of the Flexner character. “Einstein is a genius, but not necessarily one to follow the rules. And that causes issues. The play is about the interaction between the four characters. It’s not an intellectual exercise. It’s very emotional. It’s about people behaving as they behave when they’re stretched emotionally, and dealing with a big issue. And it’s not about the genius. It’s about Einstein the man. He was a little bit of a character, a little funny but warm and friendly, not the least bit remote. And he was a great music-lover.”
Princeton Public Library is at 65 Witherspoon Street. Visit princetonlibrary.org for more information. George Street Playhouse is at 11 Livingston Avenue in New Brunswick. Visit georgestreetplayhouse.org for tickets.