Actor Finds Passion in the Persona of Einstein

In Larry Gelman’s mind, Albert Einstein is alive and well.

“His persona continues to persist--he’s a monumental figure in history,” says the actor, who portrays the 20th Century’s most celebrated scientist in Willard Manus’ one-man show “Einstein: A Stage Portrait” at the Burbage Theatre in West Los Angeles.

Gelman, who has racked up hundreds of performances touring the play off and on since 1984, swears he never tires of his subject. “The passion comes easily for me,” he says, “because Einstein is a very passionate man.”

At 61, the actor says, it’s getting easier to play Einstein in his later years--the play takes place in 1946 at the scientist’s home in Princeton, N. J. He feels he has “grown into the role.” And, he notes, there are many aspects of Einstein’s life that he identifies with. “For instance, I get very passionate about nuclear weapons. And about scientific responsibility. And about what happened to the Jews in Germany. And about education. The show hits on so many different areas.”

Playwright Manus, who has taken a break from his teaching duties at UCLA Extension for a year’s stay at Ohio State University as the recipient of its James Thurber Residential Playwright fellowship, shares Gelman’s deep-rooted attraction for the subject. Manus has directed Gelman each time the actor has revived the role--including this run at the Burbage--and refers to his long affiliation with the play as “a labor of love.”

“I think of Einstein as my spiritual father,” Manus said. “What originally drew me to him were the incredible contradictions. He was the greatest scientist of his time, but he believed that morality was more important than science. And he was deeply pained that people considered him the father of the atom bomb.”

Manus’ “Trust Me,” a black comedy about a TV panel show of convicted murderers, opened in June in New York. “It’s the flip side to this show,” he said, “about what happens when people don’t accept a common humanity. ‘Einstein’ is a positive vision.”

For Gelman, whose past tours with “Einstein” include stops in Santa Barbara, San Diego and a 1984 run at the Westwood Playhouse, the chance to revive this show serves a larger purpose. He hopes to use it as a launching pad for a locally based Jewish theater.

“Los Angeles has a large Jewish population, yet it doesn’t have a representative theater,” he said, “while all the other ethnic groups here are very well represented. So Alexander White--who produced ‘Einstein’ in Chicago and San Francisco--and I have formed the National Jewish Theatre of Southern California. We’re not going to do ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ over and over again, but morally uplifting plays, work that dispels stereotypes.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Gelman now lives with his wife, Barbara, in Sherman Oaks. “The first idea I had of becoming an actor came as a very young child, perhaps as young as 5,” he recalled. “I’d been given a toy violin, and I’d go up and down the street scratching on it. My mother wouldn’t cut my hair, so I had these long, blond curls. Neighbors would pat me on the head--’How cute!’--and throw pennies. I thought that was wonderful. I loved the affirmation.”

Later, Gelman worked as a stand-up comic in bars and nightclubs around New York, moving to California in 1959. He toured with Jack Benny’s nightclub act--”We did the ugly-baby bit”--in the early ‘70s, earned an Emmy nomination in 1978 for “Barney Miller” on TV, and will appear in the forthcoming Billy Crystal movie “Mr. Saturday Night.” “And I’ve been back and forth, back and forth, to Broadway,” he said cheerfully. “I go where the work is. In the meantime, I wait for the phone to ring. That’s an actor’s life.”