Erwin Schrodinger, the sub-atomic physicist whose explanation of the electron's wave movement parallelled Heisenberg's own, ends his moment on the stage with the Nov. 18 closing of Schrodinger's Girlfriend at San Francisco's Magic Theatre. The world premiere comedy opened Nov. 2.
In Schrodinger's Girlfriend, the future Nobel Prize winner finds himself falling under the spell of cabaret singer and seductress Hansi Haas, who has already had her way with Einstein, Planck and Bohr. As he wrestles with his love and the problems of wave theory, Hass throws him over for Paul Dirac, revealing a truth that holds for both love and quantum physics: if you never ask the question, the answer can still be yes. The Magic Theatre presented a reading of Schrodinger's Girlfriend in the summer at the Exploritorium.
Wells is the author of Time's Unknown, The Mildred Piece, Don Juan in Hell's Kitchen, The Auschwitz Circus and the 2000 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival One-Act Play Award winner, Oscar and Adonis. He also co-wrote the book to the musical Hamelin.
Kenn Watt directs. A frequent collaborator with Charles Mee, he has helmed the playwright's Orestes, Summertime and the upcoming Deep Winter.
Mark Rafael Truitt ("Titanic") stars as Schrodinger with Delia MacDougall (Silence, Summertime) as Haas. Also in the cast are Beth Wilmurt, Andrew Hurteau and Robert Parsons. The Magic Theatre is located in Building D at the Fort Mason Center on Marina Boulevard. For reservations, (415) 441-8822. The Magic Theatre is on line at http://www.magictheatre.org.
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Schrodinger's Girlfriend will not only be a world premiere for the Magic Theatre, but will also inaugurate a new program, the National Partnership for New Plays. Created by the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Partnership will support theatre companies staging new works about science and technology. 2001-2002's recipients are the Magic, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, Minneapolis' Guthrie Theatre and Seattle's Intiman Theatre.
— By Christine Ehren
