On June 26, OnStage Playhouse opens "Isaac's Eye," a play about renowned 17th-century scientist Isaac Newton and an experiment involving a very large needle.
(Check out Newton's drawing of the experiment.)
At Onstage Playhouse last Wednesday night, it was hard not to notice the 12-inch upholstery needle prominently sitting on the table at rehearsal. The clue to its purpose lies in the title of the play, "Isaac’s Eye."
"It's eye singular because he only jams a needle into one of his eyes," James P. Darvas said.
That’s certainly attention-grabbing. In fact, playwright Lucas Hnath couldn’t forget about it after listening to an NPR story on the 10 greatest experiments, one of which involved Isaac Newton.
"He finished that segment, was walking home in New York, and this insanely beautiful, fantastical, somewhat fact-based world started populating his head, and he wrote this wonderful play," explained Darvas, who is the director of "Isaac's Eye" and artistic director of Onstage Playhouse.
Max Bergstrand plays Newton and said, "Ultimately we don't know why he did the experiment. It's been most likely connected to Newton using it as a means to prove that light is of a substance, a particle or a wave. So he stuck a needle within his tear duct, and that is something that occurs within the play."
The play is about science, but it plays loose with the facts. Julian Flores plays a character referred to as The Actor.
"He kind of takes you on this ride that is Isaac Newton's early years as he is trying to find himself, and trying to figure out what about his genius is that he wants to show to the world," Flores explained.
At the theater, there is a portrait of Newton next to a table with apples. Most people know Newton, if only for the story of the apple hitting him on the head or his work on the laws of gravity. But not many people are likely familiar with his personal life, and they are probably less familiar with Robert Hooke, a contemporary of Newton who was an older, more established scientist.
Tom Steward plays Hooke with a villainous flair thanks to a note from director Darvas telling him to check out the character of the Peculiar Purple Pieman from the cartoon "Strawberry Shortcake."
"In the same way Gene Roddenberry gave Patrick Stewart Horatio Hornblower, James has given me Purple Pieman from 'Strawberry Shortcake,'" Steward said. "And there was a liberating moment when he said that, because there's so much that I can now just abandon and focus on that level of cartoon villainy. We talked a little bit about Al Pacino in 'Dick Tracy' as well, and that kind of being funny for so long, and then turning on something incredibly scary and frightening out of nowhere. There are moments when we want you to fear Robert, and then there are moments when we want you to laugh at and with him too."
In the play, Hnath sets up an adversarial relationship between the two scientists, with Hooke being older and representing the establishment and Newton being the upstart young man.
"The story is Isaac writes to Robert Hooke, who's a member of the Royal Society. And young Isaac Newton feels he has to become a member of the Royal Society in order to have his brilliance recognized, certified and published," Darvas said.
At the time, Hooke was a prominent scientist best known for his equation relating to elasticity known as Hooke's Law.
"And for reasons that no one can really explain, his work disappeared after his lifetime, and he sort of disappeared from history as well," Steward said. "So any suspicion you might have that Isaac Newton was involved in writing Robert Hooke out of history, it's kind of where the playwright's going, but what it's doing with it is completely fantastical, and thankfully the playwright is playful and honest about that part of it."
"When we talk about Isaac Newton, this science genius of history, we put him on this massive pedestal when, in fact, he was this lonely, antisocial kid," Bergstrand added. "He was also a very manipulative person."
The play has many layers to analyze, so you could call it a creative experiment in which Hnath mixes truth with fiction — or should I say ether? — and then steps back to see what happens.
"The Actor addresses the audience, and he talks about how Isaac Newton believed there was ether everywhere,” Darvas said. “And because he believed that ether was everywhere, Newton was able to believe in things that weren't really there."
But Flores pointed out, "Ether is not a real thing. The Actor makes a point that ether is a lie. It's not something that's real. However, characters like Isaac see it as truth."
"He saw things that no one else could see," Bergstrand said about Newton.
In this exploration of what is truth, Hnath provides the audience with some guidance.
"There are things in this play that are true and there are things that are not true, and one of the key aspects of this show is that anything that is true is written on the wall," Bergstrand noted.
The stage is surrounded by walls painted chalkboard black, and throughout the evening the actors add facts to the wall.
"So you kind of have to keep track of what exactly is it that the play is trying to tell you. What exactly about Isaac Newton is even real?" Flores said.
One truth is that this play is about ambition.
“At the center of it are these two incredibly ambitious men,” Steward said. “Both Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton are being kind of pulled in two different directions in terms of, do you want to be happy or do you want to be successful?”
And the other question that arises is: how far are you willing to go to find that success? The play suggests the answer involves not just personal sacrifices but also the sacrifice of others, like a dying man named Sam (also played by Flores).
“He’s just a reflection of the common person during those times, those people who are not exactly in the highest ranks of society, but their existence or humanity is something that this play highlights,” Flores said.
It’s a humanity the scientists fail to acknowledge as they subject Sam to the needle experiment.
“Robert Hooke runs into the dying man named Sam who is poor, less than human, right? And Robert goes, ‘Ah, this is the person we can do the experiment on.’ And they bring him to Isaac's house and they jam a needle in his eye,” Flores said.
Bergstrand added, “The two things we've discussed as a cast that are the core tenets of this play are love and legacy. And we see how that works for each of the characters and what they love and what they want to be remembered by.”
Hooke has largely been forgotten outside the scientific community, while Newton remains widely known. What happens in the play between the two men is pure speculation. So the play leaves audiences to reach their own conclusions after witnessing what happens onstage and the truths that are written on the walls. In that sense, the audience becomes the unknown factor, reacting differently every night.
The play serves up an exciting San Diego premiere, but it comes at a challenging time for Onstage Playhouse and its artistic director, Darvas.
“Our lease is up here in February of 2027, which means we obviously can't announce a new season because we don't know where we would be,” Darvas explained. “We are somewhat on life support. We have about three months full of funds in the account right now, but we have six more months until the end of our season. So you can do the math.”
Darvas hopes that “Isaac’s Eye” will bring in needed funds for the company, but he refuses to raise ticket prices because he wants people in the Chula Vista community to be able to see live theater for $20 or less. That’s the legacy he hopes to leave.
“Isaac's Eye” opens June 26 and runs through July 19 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista.
