‘UNIFIED FIELD’ AT THEATRE CENTER : A MUSICAL ABOUT EINSTEIN? THEORY IS MOSTLY SOUND

A musical about Einstein?

His life was certainly dramatic enough. He was a German who hated Germany, a pacifist who urged Roosevelt to build the bomb and later regretted it, a young rebel who became old hat, an intensely private man who became the century’s most famous scientist, a gentle soul whose first marriage ended in divorce and whose second son was a schizophrenic.

Despite his colossal achievements, his most ambitious effort--the unified field theory--escaped his grasp. Yes, a terrific story. But a musical? Einstein played the violin, but no one thinks of him singing and dancing. It’s hard enough to explain his theories without having to make them rhyme.

Undaunted, John Leone created “The Unified Field” and staged it in the “black box” space of the Los Angeles Theatre Center, rented for the occasion. In structure and tone, it isn’t a unified show yet. But Leone has translated Einstein into the vernacular with surprising clarity, and occasionally his results match his audacity.

Leone tells Einstein’s story as a play-within-a-play, presented by the patients of a Zurich neurological hospital in 1957. One of them is Eduard Einstein (Michael D. Gainsborough), the schizophrenic, playing the role of his father. Before the patients begin their show, they kidnap their keepers--a nurse and a doctor--and take them backstage. Sporadic sounds of a struggle drift out from the wings during the rest of the performance.

It’s implied that the patients give us the unexpurgated Einstein, as opposed to the sanitized version that would have been allowed by the hospital officials. Yet the now-it-can-be-told promise isn’t fulfilled with anything that’s especially sensational or damning.

Take “Genius in Bed,” a silly song in which Einstein’s first wife (weak-voiced Jenny Agutter) poses as a vamp. The censors might well have omitted it, but so should Leone. It violates the picture of the woman that’s presented in the rest of the show (as well as in the biographies). Leone is pandering here, as if he’s afraid that the audience needs a little goosing in order to sit through his more thoughtful and accurate observations of Einstein’s life.

A more compelling justification for the mental hospital framework is the focus it shifts to the Albert-Eduard relationship. In one song, “I Can Feel the Earth Spinning,” Leone draws fascinating parallels between Eduard’s schizophrenia and Einstein’s work. And, midway through the number, the patient who plays Eduard (John Fleck) snatches the Albert wig that the real Eduard wears as he portrays his father, and they change roles. This number is provocative in a way that’s worthy of Sondheim.

It isn’t followed up, though. We learn very little about the real father-son relationship. And generally, Gainsborough is playing Albert, not Eduard. The actor’s face and voice are bland and benign, as if Eduard really isn’t schizoid after all.

Perhaps Leone felt the show needed a calm center in the midst of all the loonies. No one could ever accuse the amusing Fleck of underplaying his character’s craziness. But unless the play is Eduard’s, almost as much as Albert’s, the point of setting it inside the hospital is lost. Sure, it’s fun and easy for actors to play insanity (Dean Dittman and Jensen Collier do the most nuanced work here), but that’s not enough of a reason.

Jeff Calhoun’s choreography is streaked with ingenuity, especially in the second act when the score, by Leone and Jon Charles, is also at its most challenging.

From a simple musical explanation of Einstein’s theories, through a clear-eyed examination of the man’s increasing isolation to the arrival of the Nazis, that second act is a nearly seamless piece of musical exposition, interrupted only by a stilted marital spat.

The third act is more repetitious and less musical. “Four Basic Forces,” supposedly the grand finale, is the weakest number in the show, lyrically baffling and stylistically inappropriate.

Nicholas Dorr’s set includes one vital visual aid, a view of a starry night through a skylight and another which isn’t so vital: slide projections which distract more than they illuminate.

Considering Einstein’s absorption in the subject of light, Robert Mestmann’s lighting isn’t quite the show one expects. But it does the job. Be prepared for a violent blast of light when the bomb explodes in Act III. Except for one curiously flimsy outfit on a female patient, Eliza Dugdale’s and Christopher Marlowe’s costumes are apt.

Performances are at 514 S. Spring St., Tuesdays through Sundays at 8 p.m., with Deborah Van Valkenburgh playing Jenny Agutter’s role on Sundays. Plays indefinitely. Tickets: $20-$22; (213) 627-5599.