The Austin American-Statesman
February 15, 2001

A scientist, a play, a theater company and a vision (all twisted, of course)

By Jean Claire Van Ryzin
American-Statesman Arts Writer

Nikola Tesla was blinded by science. Or more correctly, the Serbian American inventor born in 1856 believed passionately that scientific advancements could improve the quality of life for humankind. But like all good visionaries, Tesla was eccentric and not very practical. He worked obsessively, was scared of spherical objects, the dark and everyday germs. Yet he cared for pigeons and counted Mark Twain among his good friends.

Tesla invented many things – the rotating magnetic field machine, the induction motor, polyphase alternating-current systems, the Tesla coil transformer, wireless communication, radio and fluorescent lights – but others (Thomas Edison, for one) made millions with Tesla’s inventions or got credit for his ideas. By the time he died in 1943, he was a penniless and forgotten man who claimed to be receiving signals from another planet. (Though the late 8-‘s rock group that appropriated his name had no such excuse.)

Tesla’s was an eccentric life straight out of the movies. And that is exactly where the Rude Mechanicals, the always eccentric theatre collective, went for inspiration for their “Requiem for Tesla.” Conceived and directed by Shawn Sides and written by Kirk Lynn, the production draws on Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” and James Whale’s “Frankenstein.” And because the Rudes, like their subject, are smart as well as offbeat, they throw in a dash of Faust, a little verbatim Twain and a lot of material straight from Tesla’s autobiography.

“Everybody’s gone over budget on this one,” says Lynn via phone from the Off Center, where he’s spending his day off putting finishing touches on the multi-platform set. “There’s something special about the subject matter that we all are connection with.”

Lynn likens mad scientists – Tesla was the inspiration for the mad scientist in Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons – to artists so neatly that it’s hard to know to whom he is referring when he says: “They have wild ideas that desperately need funding, they think what they’re doing is a gift to makind, they’re always trying to please their families, they’re obsessive and work too much.:

Also at work in “Requiem for Tesla” is an original score by Graham Reynolds and the Golden Arm Trio and live theremin music. Add to that a stage full of period electronics, an enormous Tesla coil, plenty of simulated lightning, some robotic dancing and you have one combustible, multi-sensory, polyphase performance.

“It’s been a bit maddening bringing all the elements together,” Lynn says. “But what’s beautiful about Tesla’s ultimate dream was the idea that there are other possibilities that we can continue to explore.”

A solution for good theater, perhaps. Nothing mad and eccentric about that.